Uzbekistan’s first World Cup appearance is often told through the players who carried the national team there: Eldor Shomurodov, Abbosbek Fayzullaev, Abdukodir Khusanov, Oston Urunov and the rest of a generation that made Uzbek football visible far beyond Central Asia. But national teams do not emerge from nowhere. They are built from clubs, cities, stadiums, academies, rivalries and local football cultures.

Over the past three decades, Uzbekistan’s domestic game has developed through several different models. There are old Soviet-era institutions, post-independence regional powers, prestige projects, industrial clubs, state-company teams, academy-driven structures and smaller provincial sides that rarely dominate the headlines but help give the league its geography. Together, they form the football map behind Uzbekistan’s World Cup dream.

The most famous point on that map is still Pakhtakor Tashkent. No club carries more symbolic weight in Uzbek football. Its name evokes cotton, Soviet Uzbekistan, the capital and one of the deepest tragedies in the country’s sporting memory: the 1979 air disaster that killed the team. Pakhtakor is not only a club with trophies. It is a national institution, a vessel of memory and the historic reference point against which other Uzbek clubs have often measured themselves.

If Pakhtakor is memory, Nasaf Qarshi is one of the clearest examples of regional achievement. Based in Kashkadarya, away from the capital and the Fergana Valley, Nasaf showed that a club outside Tashkent could build patiently, compete seriously and win internationally. Its 2011 AFC Cup victory remains one of the most important achievements in Uzbek club football. Nasaf’s story matters because it is not built around glamour. It is built around structure, continuity and the idea that a regional club can become more than a local project.

Navbahor Namangan represents something different again: popular passion. In the Fergana Valley, football is not only a sport but a form of civic identity. Navbahor’s name, meaning “spring”, gives the club a softer and more poetic image than many of its rivals, but its supporter culture is intense. Namangan’s Markaziy Stadium has become one of the emotional centres of Uzbek football, and Navbahor’s fan base has helped make the club a symbol of regional pride. If Uzbek football has a popular heartland, much of it beats in the Valley.

Also read on Novastan: Uzbekistan at the World Cup: The White Wolves Enter the Global Stage

Neftchi Fergana adds another layer to that same geography. Where Navbahor expresses Namangan’s football passion, Neftchi represents Fergana’s industrial memory. Founded as Neftyanik and linked to the oil-refining world of Fergana, the club dominated the early years after independence. It shared the first Uzbek league title with Pakhtakor in 1992, then won the championship outright in 1993, 1994 and 1995. Under Yuriy Sarkisyan, who coached the club from the late Soviet period into the post-Soviet era, Neftchi became the first great provincial power of independent Uzbek football.

Bunyodkor Tashkent belongs to another category entirely. Founded in 2005 and rapidly transformed into a prestige project, it tried to make Uzbek football visible through money, infrastructure and global names. Rivaldo came. Zico coached. Luiz Felipe Scolari followed. Samuel Eto’o did not sign, but even the rumour was enough to make international media look at Tashkent. Bunyodkor’s story is brilliant and excessive, but also fragile. It showed both the attraction and the limits of football spectacle in late Karimov-era Uzbekistan.

These five clubs explain much of Uzbek football’s recent history. Pakhtakor is memory. Nasaf is regional achievement. Navbahor is passion. Neftchi is early independence power. Bunyodkor is ambition. But the map does not end there.

Also read on Novastan: Pakhtakor Tashkent: The Club That Carries Uzbek Football’s Memory

Lokomotiv Tashkent is the most obvious next point. Founded in 2002, the club is closely associated with Uzbekistan Railways, and its nickname, the Railroaders, gives it one of the clearest institutional identities in the country. Lokomotiv became especially important in the mid-2010s, when it broke through as a serious domestic force. After several seasons as runner-up, it won the Uzbek league in 2016, 2017 and 2018, turning a railway-backed club into one of the strongest teams of the period. If Bunyodkor was the glamour project, Lokomotiv was the state-company model in a more disciplined form: less spectacular, but highly effective for several years.

AGMK, from Almalyk, shows another version of the industrial club. Its name comes from the Almalyk Mining and Metallurgical Combine, the company that has been central to the club’s identity and sponsorship. Almalyk itself is one of Uzbekistan’s major industrial towns, associated with mining, metallurgy and copper. AGMK therefore belongs to the same broad family as Neftchi and Lokomotiv: clubs whose football identity is inseparable from a major economic institution. Its importance is not only sporting. It shows how Uzbek football has often developed through the relationship between local industry, company patronage and regional visibility.

Sogdiana Jizzakh gives the map a historical and regional dimension. Founded in 1970, the club takes its name from Sogdia, the ancient region that once connected Central Asia to wider Eurasian trade, culture and empire. In football terms, Sogdiana has rarely dominated Uzbekistan, but it has mattered as a durable provincial club. Its 1992 bronze medal in the first season of the independent Uzbek league and its 2021 runner-up finish show that Jizzakh has periodically produced teams capable of challenging the established hierarchy. Sogdiana is not a giant, but it gives Uzbek football one of its strongest historical names.

Mash’al Mubarek represents yet another kind of provincial football. Based in Mubarek, a town located in Kashkadarya associated with the gas industry, the club’s name means “torch”. That symbolism matters: in a football landscape full of cotton, oil, railways, metallurgy and construction, Mash’al carries the image of gas, flame and energy. Its greatest domestic achievement came in 2005, when it finished second in the Uzbek league behind Pakhtakor and qualified for the AFC Champions League. Mash’al has not become a permanent national power, but it remains a reminder that even smaller industrial towns have produced important chapters in Uzbek football.

Andijan brings the map back to the Fergana Valley. The club has not had the same national success as Navbahor or Neftchi, but it gives the Valley another emotional football centre. In many countries, football geography is not only shaped by champions. It is also shaped by cities whose clubs carry local loyalty through difficult seasons, relegations and returns. Andijan belongs to that category: a club whose importance is regional, social and emotional more than trophy-based. In the wider story of Uzbek football, it helps show why the Fergana Valley is not one football identity, but several competing city identities.

Surkhon Termez pushes the map south. Termez, on the Afghan border, occupies a very different place in Uzbekistan’s geography and imagination from Tashkent, Namangan or Qarshi. Surkhon’s role in Uzbek football is not primarily about trophies. It is about representation. A league that includes Termez is a league that reaches the country’s southern frontier, connecting football to a borderland city shaped by trade, military routes, religion, archaeology and proximity to Afghanistan. Surkhon gives Uzbek football a southern edge.

Also read on Novastan: Nasaf Qarshi: the club that put Uzbek football on Asia’s map

There are others too. Metallurg Bekabad (Tashkent region) reflects another industrial city and another metallurgy-linked identity. Kokand 1912 carries one of the oldest and most evocative city names in Uzbek football, rooted in the history of the Kokand Khanate and the Fergana Valley’s cultural geography. Qizilqum Zarafshon adds the mining landscape of the Kyzylkum desert and the gold-producing world of Navoi Region. Turon Yaypan (Fergana region) and other smaller clubs show how the football map continues to expand and contract as money, promotion, relegation and local support shift from season to season.

This diversity matters because Uzbek football is sometimes reduced to a national-team story or to a few famous names abroad. Shomurodov in Italy, Khusanov in England, Fayzullaev in Russia and other players in foreign leagues are now the most visible symbols of the country’s rise. But behind them stands a domestic structure that is more complicated than a simple talent pipeline. It includes Soviet legacies, regional pride, industrial sponsorship, state-company backing, academy projects, local administrations and fan cultures that vary sharply from city to city.

That structure has not always been stable. Uzbek clubs have often depended on powerful sponsors, state-linked companies or regional authorities. Budgets can rise and fall. Ownership can be opaque. Teams can surge quickly and decline just as quickly. Bunyodkor’s rise and fall showed the risks of spectacle. Neftchi’s long decline after its golden age showed how difficult it is to maintain dominance. Lokomotiv’s mid-2010s success showed how quickly a well-supported club can become a domestic force, but also how hard it is to turn a strong cycle into permanent mythology.

Yet this instability is also part of the story. Uzbek football has been built through experimentation. Some clubs have relied on memory. Some on fans. Some on factories. Some on railways. Some on academies. Some on local government. Some on the charisma of a coach or the ambition of a sponsor. The result is uneven, but it is not empty. It has produced institutions, rivalries and football environments that helped prepare the ground for the current generation.

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The World Cup moment gives this domestic map new meaning. For years, Uzbekistan was one of Asian football’s nearly teams: technically strong, competitive, respected, but repeatedly falling short of the final step. Qualification changes the story. It allows the country to look back and ask not only which players made history, but which clubs, cities and football cultures helped make those players possible.

In that sense, the road to the World Cup did not begin only in national-team camps. It passed through Pakhtakor’s memory, Nasaf’s discipline, Navbahor’s crowds, Neftchi’s industrial Fergana, Bunyodkor’s academy fields, Lokomotiv’s railway-backed structure, AGMK’s metallurgical city, Sogdiana’s Jizzakh, Mash’al’s gas-town football, Andijan’s Valley loyalty and Surkhon’s southern frontier.

Uzbekistan’s football map is therefore not a straight line from Tashkent to the World Cup. It is a network. It runs through cotton, oil, gas, railways, mining towns, ancient cities, border regions and stadiums where local pride is turned into football identity. That is what makes the country’s first World Cup appearance more than a national-team success. It is the result of a football culture built across many Uzbekistans: capital and province, industry and academy, memory and ambition, spectacle and patience.

The next question is whether this moment can strengthen the clubs themselves. World Cup qualification can inspire young players, attract more attention to the domestic league, and make football more attractive to sponsors and families. But it can also widen the gap between the national team’s global visibility and the domestic league’s everyday realities. The challenge for Uzbekistan will be to use the World Cup not only as a celebration, but as a catalyst: better academies, better coaching, stronger governance, more transparent club structures and stadium cultures that can grow beyond occasional big matches.

If that happens, the clubs behind the World Cup dream will not remain only background stories. They will become part of Uzbekistan’s next football chapter. The country has reached the World Cup. Now its domestic game has to decide what kind of football nation it wants to become.

Mathieu Lemoine, Editor-in-Chief for Novastan-English

The post Beyond the big clubs: the football map behind Uzbekistan’s World Cup dream appeared first on Novastan English.

Special series – The Clubs Behind Uzbekistan’s World Cup Dream

As Uzbekistan plays in its first-ever FIFA World Cup after a historic qualification campaign, Novastan looks at the clubs that shaped the country’s football identity. From Soviet-era Pakhtakor Tashkent to regional powerhouses such as Nasaf Qarshi, Navbahor Namangan and Neftchi Fergana, this series explores how club football helped build the foundations of the White Wolves’ rise.

In 2008, Uzbek football briefly became one of the strangest stories in the global game. A young Tashkent club, only three years old, claimed it was close to signing Samuel Eto’o from Barcelona, actually signed Rivaldo, hired Zico, and then brought in Luiz Felipe Scolari, Brazil’s 2002 World Cup-winning coach. Its name was Bunyodkor, meaning “creator” or “builder”, and for a few years it seemed to offer a new idea: that Uzbek football could force its way into international visibility through money, infrastructure and famous names.

Bunyodkor is unlike the other clubs in this series. Pakhtakor Tashkent carries Soviet memory and national tragedy. Nasaf Qarshi represents regional achievement and Asian success. Navbahor Namangan embodies popular passion in the Fergana Valley. Neftchi Fergana recalls the early years of independent Uzbek football. Bunyodkor belongs to a different category. It was not an old community club or a regional football institution. It was a project: fast, ambitious, spectacular and deeply tied to the political economy of late Karimov-era Uzbekistan.

The club was founded on 6 July 2005 as Neftgazmontaj-Quruvchi, usually shortened to Kuruvchi, meaning “builder”. The name reflected its origins in construction and energy-linked structures. In 2008, after rapid sporting success, the club was renamed Bunyodkor. The new name, often translated as “creator” or “builder”, suited its self-image. This was a club built quickly, with the aim of doing quickly what most football institutions take decades to achieve.

Its rise was immediate. After starting in the lower divisions, Bunyodkor moved rapidly through Uzbek football. It finished second in the 2007 Uzbek League, then won the championship in 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2013. It also won the Uzbek Cup four times, in 2008, 2010, 2012 and 2013, and the Uzbek Super Cup in 2014. In less than a decade, it became one of the most decorated clubs of independent Uzbek football.

Also read on Novastan: Uzbekistan at the World Cup: The White Wolves Enter the Global Stage

But domestic success alone was not what made Bunyodkor famous. The turning point came in 2008, when the club tried to place itself in the global football conversation. The first episode was Samuel Eto’o. Kuruvchi publicly claimed that it had signed the Barcelona striker on a short-term contract. Eto’o travelled to Tashkent and gave a skills session, but the transfer never happened. Barcelona denied that a completed deal existed, and Eto’o remained in Europe. The episode mattered less because Eto’o played for the club – he did not – than because it showed Bunyodkor’s new method: using global football names to make the world look at Tashkent.

Rivaldo was different. He actually came. In August 2008, the Brazilian World Cup winner and former Ballon d’Or winner left AEK Athens for Bunyodkor. Reports described the contract as one of the most lucrative ever offered by a Central Asian club. For an Uzbek club, this was extraordinary. Rivaldo’s arrival gave Bunyodkor instant global recognition. For the first time, a club from Uzbekistan was not being discussed only in Asian football circles, but in the international sports press.

His presence was more than symbolic. Rivaldo played for Bunyodkor between 2008 and 2010, scored regularly and became the club’s international face. He brought glamour, but also credibility. The idea of an Uzbek club employing a player who had won the World Cup with Brazil and starred for Barcelona would have sounded impossible only a few years earlier. Bunyodkor made it real.

Also read on Novastan: Pakhtakor Tashkent: The Club That Carries Uzbek Football’s Memory

The club then added another Brazilian legend, this time on the bench. Zico arrived as head coach in September 2008. His stay was brief, but successful. Under him, Bunyodkor won the Uzbek league and cup double and reached the semi-finals of the AFC Champions League. That continental run was important because it showed that the project was not only spectacle. Bunyodkor could also compete seriously in Asia.

In 2009, the club went further by appointing Luiz Felipe Scolari. Scolari had led Brazil to the 2002 World Cup and had recently left Chelsea. In Tashkent, he was reunited with Rivaldo, one of the stars of his World Cup-winning Brazil side. His contract was reported to make him one of the world’s best-paid football managers at the time. Bunyodkor’s domestic dominance continued, but the experiment did not last. Scolari left in 2010, less than a year into his contract, and Rivaldo also departed that year.

The money behind this period remains central to the story. Officially, Bunyodkor’s early sponsors were linked to construction and oil-gas structures, and later to state-linked companies such as Uztransgaz. During the Rivaldo and Scolari years, international reporting connected the club’s big-spending model to the opaque political economy of Karimov-era Uzbekistan, including companies and elite networks close to the presidential family. The precise ownership and financing arrangements were never fully transparent, and that opacity is part of the club’s history. Bunyodkor was not only a football club with rich sponsors; it was a product of a specific political moment, when energy money, elite business networks, international branding and football spectacle briefly came together.

When the money became less reliable, the illusion of unlimited ambition faded quickly. Rivaldo later pursued unpaid wages. Scolari left. Zeromax ran into serious trouble. Bunyodkor remained an important Uzbek club, but the era when it could plausibly attract Brazil’s biggest football names was over.

The club’s stadium tells a parallel story. Bunyodkor initially played at smaller Tashkent venues, including the MHSK and JAR stadiums. In 2012, the new Bunyodkor Stadium opened in Tashkent with a capacity of around 34,000 spectators. Later renamed Milliy Stadium, although the Bunyodkor name has remained closely associated with the venue, it became one of Uzbekistan’s main football arenas and an important home for the national team. The stadium gave the club a physical monument to its ambitions: modern, large and clearly designed to project national football confidence.

Bunyodkor’s nicknames also reveal how it wanted to be seen. The club is commonly known as Qaldirg‘ochlar, “the Swallows”, a nickname that gives it a more elegant and modern identity than the industrial or regional names of many older Uzbek clubs. It has also been called the “Asian Barcelona”, a label linked to the club’s attempted relationship with Barcelona, its Brazilian stars and its dream of becoming a stylish continental power. These labels matter because Bunyodkor was always more than a team on the pitch. It was also a brand, a projection of ambition and a claim that Uzbek football could belong in a wider global conversation.

Also read on Novastan: Nasaf Qarshi: the club that put Uzbek football on Asia’s map

Yet Bunyodkor’s fan identity is more complicated than that of clubs such as Navbahor or Neftchi. Navbahor has the emotional weight of Namangan. Neftchi has Fergana’s industrial memory and early independence dominance. Pakhtakor has generations of Soviet and post-Soviet supporters. Bunyodkor is younger and more constructed. Its fans are mostly Tashkent-based and linked to a newer football culture: urban, stadium-centred, and associated with the club’s years of success rather than with decades of inherited loyalty.

This does not mean the club lacks supporters. Bunyodkor’s rise, stars, stadium and trophies gave it visibility, especially among younger fans in Tashkent. But its supporter culture has never carried the same mythology as Pakhtakor’s tragedy, Navbahor’s packed stands in Namangan or Neftchi’s Sarkisyan-era memory. Bunyodkor’s fan base is a product of modern Uzbek football: newer, more media-driven, and shaped by success, branding and academy football.

The club’s place in popular culture is also different. Pakhtakor has been celebrated in songs and public memory. Navbahor’s culture lives strongly through supporters, fan pages and stadium chants. For Bunyodkor, there does not appear to be a clearly documented famous pop song comparable to Pakhtakor’s songs by well-known Uzbek performers. Its pop-cultural footprint comes instead from spectacle: the astonishing arrival of Rivaldo, the Eto’o episode, Scolari in Tashkent, the “Asian Barcelona” label, and the image of a club that briefly made Uzbekistan visible in global football gossip.

That may be Bunyodkor’s most distinctive cultural role. It did not enter Uzbek popular culture mainly through music or folklore. It entered it through headlines. For a few years, the club made people ask: how could Rivaldo be in Tashkent? Could Eto’o really come? Why was Scolari coaching in Uzbekistan? Bunyodkor became a football story that sounded almost unreal, and that unreality was part of its appeal.

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There were also real footballers behind the spectacle. Mirjalol Qosimov, one of Uzbekistan’s great football figures, coached the club before and after the Brazilian era and helped give it a domestic football identity. Server Djeparov, one of the best Uzbek players of his generation and a two-time Asian Footballer of the Year, played for Bunyodkor. Rivaldo brought global fame, but players like Qosimov and Djeparov connected the club to Uzbek football’s own hierarchy of talent and authority.

Bunyodkor also became part of the careers of players who now define Uzbekistan’s World Cup generation. Eldor Shomurodov played for Bunyodkor from 2015 to 2017 before moving to Rostov in Russia, the transfer that opened the path to Serie A and later to his role as Uzbekistan’s captain. Abdukodir Khusanov, now one of the most internationally visible Uzbek players after his move to Manchester City, also passed through Bunyodkor’s academy before leaving for Belarus and then moving through Lens to English football. In this sense, Bunyodkor’s future may be more important than its past glamour: not as a club that buys stars, but as a club that helps produce them.

This is where the hope for the future lies. Bunyodkor is unlikely to repeat the Rivaldo-Scolari moment. That period belonged to a specific political and financial environment that no longer exists in the same form. But the club still has assets that matter: a recognised name, a major stadium environment, an academy tradition, experience in Asian competitions and a place in the capital’s football ecosystem. If it builds from youth development rather than spectacle, Bunyodkor can remain important to Uzbek football in a more sustainable way.

The club’s recent position suggests a more modest but potentially healthier phase. It is no longer the overwhelming force of 2008-2013, and it no longer looks like a club trying to buy global attention. But that may not be a weakness. Bunyodkor’s next chapter could be less glamorous and more useful: developing young players, competing domestically, returning to Asian relevance and contributing to the national team’s talent pipeline.

That would also change the meaning of its name. “Bunyodkor” means builder. In the late 2000s, the club tried to build international prestige from the top down, with money, names and spectacle. In the future, it may have to build differently: from academy fields, coaching structures, scouting and patience.

This is why Bunyodkor belongs in a series about the clubs behind Uzbekistan’s World Cup dream. Not because it is the deepest-rooted club in the country, and not because its big-money years offer a model to copy. It matters because it shows one of the boldest and most contradictory experiments in Uzbek football history. It brought global attention to Tashkent. It produced real trophies. It reached the AFC Champions League semi-finals. It revealed the risks of opaque money and prestige politics. And, through players such as Shomurodov and Khusanov, it still connects to the generation carrying Uzbekistan onto the World Cup stage.

Pakhtakor is memory. Nasaf is regional achievement. Navbahor is passion. Neftchi is early independence power. Bunyodkor is ambition – brilliant, excessive, fragile, and still unfinished.

Mathieu Lemoine, Editor-in-Chief for Novastan-English

The post Bunyodkor Tashkent: the prestige project that tried to put Uzbek football on the world map appeared first on Novastan English.

Special series – The Clubs Behind Uzbekistan’s World Cup Dream

As Uzbekistan plays in its first-ever FIFA World Cup after a historic qualification campaign, Novastan looks at the clubs that shaped the country’s football identity. From Soviet-era Pakhtakor Tashkent to regional powerhouses such as Nasaf Qarshi, Navbahor Namangan and Neftchi Fergana, this series explores how club football helped build the foundations of the White Wolves’ rise.

In the first years after Uzbekistan’s independence, the strongest club in the country was not always Pakhtakor Tashkent. For much of the 1990s, Uzbek football revolved around Fergana, where a team born from the oil industry became the first great provincial power of the new national league.

That team was Neftchi Fergana. Founded in 1962 as Neftyanik and renamed Neftchi after independence, the club carried the world of Fergana’s industrial economy into football. Its name means “oil worker” or “oilman”, a direct reference to the city’s refinery, chemical production and working-class sporting culture. If Pakhtakor’s name evokes cotton and Soviet Uzbekistan, Neftchi’s evokes oil, labour and the industrial pride of the Fergana Valley.

The club’s importance lies above all in what it achieved after 1991. Neftchi shared the first independent Uzbek league title with Pakhtakor in 1992, then won the championship outright in 1993, 1994 and 1995. It added another title in 2001. In the formative decade of Uzbek football, Neftchi was not an outsider challenging the hierarchy. It was the hierarchy.

The roots of that dominance go back to the Soviet period. Neftyanik Fergana spent years in the Soviet lower leagues, developing within sports structures linked to the region’s oil industry. In 1990, it won its Soviet Second League zone and reached the Soviet First League. In 1991, the final year of Soviet football, it finished seventh in that division. When Uzbekistan became independent, Neftchi entered the new national championship with organisation, confidence and a squad already used to competitive football.

The figure who connected these eras was Yuriy Sarkisyan. Born in Yerevan, Sarkisyan made his football life in Uzbekistan. He joined Neftyanik as a player in the 1970s, finished his playing career in Fergana, and later became head coach. From 1987 to 2013, he led the club for more than a quarter of a century, an almost unimaginable tenure in post-Soviet football.

Also read on Novastan: Uzbekistan at the World Cup: The White Wolves Enter the Global Stage

Sarkisyan was more than a successful coach. He became the face of Neftchi’s golden age. Under his leadership, the club won five Uzbek league titles, two Uzbek Cups and nine silver medals. Local football media often called him the “Uzbek Ferguson”, a comparison to Sir Alex Ferguson that reflected not only his trophies, but his longevity, authority and ability to build a club culture over decades.

His approach also shaped Neftchi’s identity. Sarkisyan relied heavily on domestic and local players rather than building the team around foreign signings. That made Neftchi feel like a Fergana club in a deeper sense: not only based in the city, but built from its football environment. At a time when many post-Soviet clubs were unstable, changing names, sponsors, budgets and squads, Neftchi had a recognisable structure and a coach who became an institution.

The 1990s side became the foundation of the club’s legend. Neftchi’s early champions were not only title winners; they helped define the new Uzbek league. The club’s squads included players who would become important figures in Uzbek football, including Andrey Fyodorov, later one of the country’s best-known defenders and coaches, and Oleg Shatskikh, who passed through Neftchi before becoming associated with other major clubs. The team also relied on players from Fergana and the wider valley, reinforcing its regional character.

Also read on Novastan: Pakhtakor Tashkent: The Club That Carries Uzbek Football’s Memory

For supporters, Neftchi’s strength was not only about results. It was about the feeling that Fergana could stand at the centre of national football. The early years after independence were a moment of reordering, when cities, institutions and regions were looking for their place in a new state. Neftchi gave Fergana a football voice at precisely that moment.

The club’s home today is Istiqlol Stadium, opened in 2015 with a capacity of around 20,500 spectators. The name means “independence”, which suits Neftchi better than almost any other Uzbek club. Its greatest period came when independent Uzbekistan’s football institutions were being born. The stadium is therefore not only a modern arena, but a reminder of the era that made the club famous.

Fergana itself gives the team much of its meaning. The city is one of the main urban centres of the Fergana Valley, long associated with oil refining, chemicals, textiles and regional production. Around it lies one of Central Asia’s richest cultural landscapes: Margilan and its silk traditions, Rishtan and its ceramics, Kokand and the memory of the khanate. Neftchi belongs to that setting: industrial, regional, confident and deeply connected to the valley.

This identity sets it apart from the other clubs in this series. Pakhtakor Tashkent carries Soviet memory and national tragedy. Nasaf Qarshi represents regional ambition and Asian success. Navbahor Namangan expresses popular passion and supporter culture. Neftchi represents the first post-independence football order: disciplined, industrial, local and built around a coach who became part of the club’s mythology.

Its rivalries reflect that history. Matches against Pakhtakor were among the defining fixtures of the early Uzbek league, opposing the capital’s historic club to Fergana’s rising power. Matches against Navbahor Namangan carry the internal geography of the Fergana Valley. Navbahor represents Namangan’s emotional football culture; Neftchi represents Fergana’s industrial memory and early dominance. Their rivalry is not only about points, but about prestige between neighbouring cities.

Yet Neftchi’s story is not one of uninterrupted glory. After the 2001 title, the club gradually lost ground. Pakhtakor reasserted itself. Bunyodkor became the prestige project of the late 2000s. Nasaf developed its own regional model and won the AFC Cup. Neftchi, once the symbol of the new Uzbek league, began to look like a club living more on memory than on present success.

Also read on Novastan: Nasaf Qarshi: the club that put Uzbek football on Asia’s map

The decline became severe enough for the club to spend time outside the top flight, a painful fall for a team that had once shaped the championship. That is why its recent revival matters. Neftchi’s return to the top of Uzbek football in 2025 was not simply another sporting success. It restored one of the original names of the independent Uzbek league to the centre of the domestic game.

The 2025 championship ended a 24-year wait. In Fergana, it was received as more than a trophy. It was the return of a club that had once made the city central to Uzbek football. Local media and regional officials presented the achievement as a source of pride, linking it to a wider ambition to strengthen football in the region. The title showed that Neftchi was not only a nostalgic reference to the 1990s. It could again shape the present.

The institutional context also remains important. Neftchi has long been closely connected to Fergana’s industrial and regional structures, above all through the oil-refining economy that gave the club its name and identity. Like many Uzbek clubs, it sits at the intersection of sport, local administration, industrial support and regional prestige. Its story is therefore not only about football results, but also about the way regional institutions, industries and local pride have helped shape club football in Uzbekistan.

Its present-day squad also gives it a link to the wider national-team environment. Goalkeeper Botirali Ergashev, who has been called up by Uzbekistan and plays for Neftchi Fergana, connects the club to the country’s current football generation. But Neftchi’s deeper contribution is historical rather than symbolic. The club helped create the competitive domestic culture from which Uzbek football developed.

Also read on Novastan: Discussions sur le développement du football féminin au Kazakhstan

That is why the club deserves a central place in any account of Uzbekistan’s football rise. It was there at the beginning of the independent league. It gave Fergana a national football voice. It had one of the longest and most successful coaching eras in post-Soviet football. It rose, declined, rebuilt and returned. Few Uzbek clubs offer such a complete football biography.

Neftchi’s story contains several layers of modern Uzbek football: the Soviet legacy, the first years of independence, regional ambition, industrial sponsorship, coaching continuity, collapse and revival. It is not only a club of the past, nor simply a revived champion of the present. It is a bridge between both.

As Uzbekistan steps onto the World Cup stage, Neftchi reminds us that national football identities are built over decades, often far from the spotlight. They are built in cities like Fergana, through clubs that give local pride a structure, a history and a stadium.

The road to Uzbekistan’s first World Cup passed through many places: Tashkent, Qarshi, Namangan, foreign leagues and national-team camps. But it also passed through Fergana, through Neftchi, and through the long shadow of Yuriy Sarkisyan, the coach who turned an oil-workers’ club into one of the founding powers of independent Uzbek football.

Mathieu Lemoine, Editor-in-Chief for Novastan-English

The post Neftchi Fergana: the oil-workers’ club that dominated early Uzbek football appeared first on Novastan English.

Special series – The Clubs Behind Uzbekistan’s World Cup Dream

As Uzbekistan plays in its first-ever FIFA World Cup after a historic qualification campaign, Novastan looks at the clubs that shaped the country’s football identity. From Soviet-era Pakhtakor Tashkent to regional powerhouses such as Nasaf Qarshi, Navbahor Namangan and Neftchi Fergana, this series explores how club football helped build the foundations of the White Wolves’ rise.

If Pakhtakor Tashkent carries Uzbek football’s memory and Nasaf Qarshi represents its modern regional ambition, Navbahor Namangan explains why the game has such emotional depth outside the capital. Based in one of Uzbekistan’s largest cities and one of the main centres of the Fergana Valley, Navbahor is not only a football club. It is Namangan’s public football identity: a club of local pride, strong support and regional self-confidence.

As Uzbekistan plays in its first-ever FIFA World Cup, attention naturally falls on the national team’s most visible stars: Eldor Shomurodov, Abdukodir Khusanov, Abbosbek Fayzullaev and Fabio Cannavaro, the Italian World Cup winner now leading the White Wolves. But behind the national team’s breakthrough lies a domestic football culture built in cities and regions across the country. Namangan is one of those places, and Navbahor is one of the clubs that explain why Uzbek football is not simply a Tashkent story.

The World Cup link is direct. Goalkeeper Utkir Yusupov, one of the players named in Uzbekistan’s 2026 World Cup squad, has been associated with Navbahor and returned to the club after playing abroad. His presence connects Namangan to the national-team story at a moment when the White Wolves are stepping onto the global stage for the first time. But Navbahor’s importance goes beyond one player. It lies in what the club represents: the idea that football in Uzbekistan is rooted in regional cities, local loyalties and stadium cultures that have developed far from the administrative centre.

Navbahor was founded in 1978 under the name Tekstilshchik, a name that reflected the Soviet-era connection between football clubs, local industries and institutions. The club later became Navbahor, a name usually understood as “new spring”. In the years before and after independence, the club also appeared under names such as Avtomobilist and Novbahor before settling into its current identity. The changes say something about the post-Soviet world in which Uzbek football developed: clubs were not only sporting teams, but institutions shaped by industry, administration, city identity and national transition.

Navbahor is not just a popular regional club. It is one of the historic names of post-Soviet Uzbek football. Since the creation of the independent Uzbek league in 1992, it has remained one of the few clubs, alongside Pakhtakor and Neftchi, to have played every season in the top division. This continuity matters. It means that Navbahor is not a passing regional enthusiasm, but one of the permanent structures of Uzbek football.

Also read on Novastan: Uzbekistan at the World Cup: The White Wolves Enter the Global Stage

The club quickly became one of the leading sides of the independent era. It won the Uzbek Cup in 1992, 1995 and 1998, became national champion in 1996, and won the Uzbek Super Cup in 1999. In Asia, Navbahor reached the semi-finals of the Asian Cup Winners’ Cup in the 1999-2000 season, one of the club’s strongest continental results. These honours gave Navbahor a firm place in the early history of independent Uzbek football.

The 1996 league title remains a key moment. It showed that Uzbek football’s post-independence order was not fixed only around Tashkent or Fergana. Namangan, too, could produce a champion. For supporters, the title became part of a local memory of pride and possibility. For the national football map, it helped establish the Fergana Valley as one of the country’s strongest football regions.

Namangan itself gives the club much of its meaning. It is one of Uzbekistan’s largest cities and one of the main urban centres of the Fergana Valley, a densely populated region where local identities are especially strong. The city is known for gardens, flowers and public celebrations, especially the Namangan International Flower Festival, which has become one of its most recognisable events. It is also associated with crafts, trade, light industry and a strong sense of local identity within the valley. In this context, Navbahor is more than a football team: it is one of the ways Namangan becomes visible to the rest of Uzbekistan.

Also read on Novastan: Pakhtakor Tashkent: The Club That Carries Uzbek Football’s Memory

Namangan’s cultural profile also helps explain why the club’s identity feels larger than sport. The city is associated with figures such as the poet Usmon Nosir, one of the important voices of twentieth-century Uzbek literature, and with popular singers including Samandar Hamroqulov and Muhriddin Xoliqov. These references matter not because they are directly linked to the club, but because they show that Navbahor comes from a city with its own cultural confidence, not from a peripheral football town waiting to be defined by Tashkent.

Navbahor’s home is Markaziy Stadium in Namangan, one of the important regional football arenas in Uzbekistan. Originally built with a larger capacity, it was renovated in the early 2010s and reopened in 2014 as an all-seater stadium with around 22,000 seats. The renovation matters because it gave the club a modernised regional stage at a time when Uzbek football was becoming more professional and more media-visible. In a city where local pride is strong, the stadium is not only a sports venue; it is one of the places where Namangan presents itself nationally.

That supporter culture is one of the reasons the club stands out. Markaziy Stadium is often described as one of the most attended football venues in Uzbekistan, and Navbahor’s home matches have a reputation for drawing full or near-full crowds. In a national league where not every club can rely on a large match-going public, this makes Navbahor distinctive: the club is not only followed, it is physically present in the city’s weekly life.

Around Uzbek stadiums, football is also part of a wider social ritual, with food stalls, local snacks and the familiar smells of plov, samsa, manti, lagman and fresh bread forming part of the matchday environment. For Navbahor, this should not be understood as an official tradition, but as part of the social setting of football in the Fergana Valley: a match is a public gathering as much as a sporting event.

Navbahor’s identity is also carried by its symbols. Supporters often refer to the club as Lochinlar or Sapsanlar – the Falcons, or Peregrine Falcons. The image fits the club’s reputation: fast, proud, regional and difficult to domesticate. Rather than a single widely documented official mascot, Navbahor’s symbolic world is built around this bird imagery, the red-and-white colours, the city of Namangan and the energy of its supporters.

The club’s cultural presence is therefore more fan-based than celebrity-based. Unlike Pakhtakor, which has entered Uzbek pop culture through songs by well-known performers, Navbahor’s soundscape is closer to the stadium: chants, supporter videos, fan pages and the repeated use of falcon imagery. The club’s culture is produced less by national pop stars than by the crowd itself.

Also read on Novastan: Nasaf Qarshi: the club that put Uzbek football on Asia’s map

Navbahor’s rivalries give the club further weight. Its matches against Neftchi Fergana and Andijan are part of the “Derby of the Valley”, a rivalry between the main football centres of Namangan, Fergana and Andijan. These games matter because they are not only sporting contests. They express the internal geography of the Fergana Valley, where neighbouring cities are close enough to share a regional identity but distinct enough to compete for prestige.

Games against Pakhtakor Tashkent, meanwhile, oppose the emotional force of a regional club to the prestige of the capital’s historic institution. In recent years, matches against Nasaf Qarshi and other ambitious regional clubs have also reflected a broader shift in Uzbek football: the challenge to Tashkent’s long-standing centrality.

Navbahor’s institutional structure also reflects the way many Uzbek clubs operate. Publicly available reporting presents the club less as a privately owned Western European-style football company than as an institution linked to regional administration, local football structures and sponsors. In 2021, Namangan Pravda reported that Otabek Samatov had become president of FC Navbahor, adding that the post had traditionally been held by the hokim of Namangan city. In 2025, Zamin.uz reported that Anvarjon Tojimirzayev, hokim of Namangan’s Davlatabad district, had been appointed club president at a meeting attended by the hokim of Namangan Region, who also headed the regional football association. In February 2026, Tribuna.uz again described Tojimirzayev as both Davlatabad district hokim and president of Navbahor during a meeting on club and stadium management changes. This gives Navbahor a public-regional character rather than the profile of a purely private club.

The club has also relied on sponsors and public support. In February 2024, Namangan Pravda reported that the electronic trading platform E-AUKSION had become Navbahor’s title sponsor for the season. A few weeks earlier, Gazeta.uz reported that Namangan regional hokim Shavkatjon Abdurazzoqov had allocated 2.5 billion soums (about €181,003) to the club from the reserve fund of the regional budget. Kursiv, citing the same public decision-making trail, reported that the money was allocated in two tranches, 500 million (about €36,201) and 2 billion soums (about €144,803), for football development in the region and the restoration of Navbahor’s financial position. Together, these sources show how Navbahor sits at the intersection of sponsorship, regional administration and local football prestige.

Also read on Novastan: Discussions sur le développement du football féminin au Kazakhstan

The clearest sign of Navbahor’s attempt to professionalise is its new partnership with Ajax. In June 2026, Ajax announced that Navbahor had joined its international football network, with the Dutch club supporting the development and coordination of Navbahor’s youth academy through Ajax’s football philosophy and methodology. Uzbek reporting presented the agreement as a step toward aligning the Navbahor academy with international standards and bringing Ajax’s training approach to young players in Namangan. For a club often described through passion and local pride, the Ajax partnership adds another layer: Navbahor is trying to turn regional energy into a more structured development model.

Navbahor’s history is also linked to several important players and coaches. In the 1990s, the club’s title-winning period was associated with coaches such as Viktor Jalilov and Sharif Nazarov, while players from that era helped establish Navbahor as one of the first serious challengers in the independent Uzbek league. More recently, goalkeeper Utkir Yusupov connected the club to Uzbekistan’s first World Cup squad. The appointment of former Uzbekistan international Timur Kapadze as head coach also gives Navbahor a current national-team resonance: the club is not only a historical name, but part of the country’s contemporary football conversation.

Navbahor’s story also says something about the relationship between football and demography. Namangan is one of Uzbekistan’s major cities, and the Fergana Valley is one of the most densely populated regions of Central Asia. A strong club there is not just a sporting asset. It is a social institution, giving local identity a public form. When Navbahor plays, it is not only a team on the pitch. It is a city and a region seeing themselves represented.

This is why Navbahor deserves its own place in this series. Uzbekistan’s World Cup qualification is often told through elite players abroad, through Shomurodov in Türkiye, Khusanov in England, Fayzullaev’s rise and Cannavaro’s global name. But the emotional depth of Uzbek football comes from places like Namangan. It comes from supporters who built attachments to clubs long before the national team reached the World Cup.

Navbahor also helps explain why Uzbek football has national resonance. A football culture cannot be built only through academies, transfers and professional leagues. It also needs places where people care. Namangan is one of those places. Navbahor gives that care a colour, a name and a stadium.

As Uzbekistan steps onto the World Cup stage, Navbahor’s role is therefore symbolic as much as sporting. It reminds us that the White Wolves’ rise is not only the result of a golden generation or an imported coach. It is also the product of regional football cultures, local pride and stadiums where supporters learned to see football as part of who they are.

This is why Navbahor is more than the “passionate club” of Uzbek football. It is the football expression of a major regional city. Namangan has population, cultural confidence, public festivals, economic activity and a strong sense of place. Navbahor gives all of that a weekly form. When the club plays, it is not only competing for points; it is representing a city that wants to be seen, heard and respected within Uzbekistan’s national football map.

If Pakhtakor is the memory of Uzbek football and Nasaf is its modern regional proof, Navbahor is its heartbeat. It is the club that shows why Uzbek football matters not only in the capital, but in the valley, in the city, in the stands and in the emotional geography of the country.

The road to the World Cup did not begin only in Tashkent, Qarshi or Europe’s professional leagues. It also passed through Namangan, through Markaziy Stadium, through the red and white of Navbahor, and through a city that has long made football part of its identity.

Mathieu Lemoine, Editor-in-Chief for Novastan-English

The post Navbahor Namangan: the Fergana Valley’s football heartbeat appeared first on Novastan English.

Special series – The Clubs Behind Uzbekistan’s World Cup Dream

As Uzbekistan plays in its first-ever FIFA World Cup after a historic qualification campaign, Novastan looks at the clubs that shaped the country’s football identity. From Soviet-era Pakhtakor Tashkent to regional powerhouses such as Nasaf Qarshi, Navbahor Namangan and Neftchi Fergana, this series explores how club football helped build the foundations of the White Wolves’ rise.

If Pakhtakor Tashkent carries Uzbek football’s memory, Nasaf Qarshi represents its modern regional ambition. The club from Qarshi, in the southern region of Qashqadaryo, has become one of the clearest examples of how Uzbek football moved beyond the capital and built a wider national geography.

As Uzbekistan makes its first appearance at the FIFA World Cup, attention naturally falls on the national team’s most visible names: Eldor Shomurodov, Abdukodir Khusanov, Abbosbek Fayzullaev and Fabio Cannavaro, the Italian World Cup winner now leading the White Wolves. But behind that national breakthrough lies an ecosystem of clubs that developed players, created competitive pressure and gave Uzbek football its domestic foundation. Nasaf is central to that story.

The World Cup may be new for Uzbekistan, but Nasaf’s role in the country’s football rise is not. Current national-team goalkeeper Abduvohid Nematov and defender Umar Eshmurodov both connect the club directly to Uzbekistan’s first World Cup squad, while Nasaf has also become known for developing and giving responsibility to Uzbek players at a high competitive level. In a football culture long associated with Tashkent’s dominance, Nasaf showed that a club from Qarshi could win at home, compete in Asia and become a national reference point.

Nasaf was founded in 1986 under the name Geolog, a reminder of the Soviet and industrial context in which many clubs across the region were created. Like other post-Soviet teams, its early identity reflected local institutions, economic structures and regional life as much as sport itself. The club later became known as Nasaf, a name linked to the historical name of the Qarshi area, connecting the team to a deeper local geography.

That geography matters. Qarshi is not Tashkent. It is not the political, administrative or media centre of Uzbekistan. Located in Qashqadaryo, in the south of the country, it sits in a region associated with energy, agriculture, industry and routes towards the wider south. For a club from Qarshi to become one of Uzbekistan’s leading football institutions means that Uzbek football cannot be understood only through the capital.

Also read on Novastan: Uzbekistan at the World Cup: The White Wolves Enter the Global Stage

Nasaf’s home is Markaziy Stadium, also known as Nasaf Stadium, in Qarshi. Built in the 2000s and holding around 21,000 spectators, it became one of the most important football arenas outside Tashkent. Its most famous night came on 29 October 2011, when Nasaf hosted the AFC Cup final against Kuwait SC. For one evening, the centre of Uzbek football was not the capital. It was Qarshi.

That final remains the defining moment in Nasaf’s history. Playing at home, the club beat Kuwait SC 2-1 and became the first Uzbek side to win the AFC Cup. The goals came from Ilkhom Shomurodov and Andrejs Pereplotkins, before Kuwait SC reduced the score. The result did more than add a trophy to the cabinet. It proved that an Uzbek club from outside Tashkent could win a major Asian competition and make the country visible beyond the domestic league.

The symbolism was powerful. Pakhtakor had carried Uzbek football through Soviet visibility, post-independence dominance and repeated Asian ambitions. Bunyodkor would later become associated with money, international names and prestige projects. But Nasaf offered something different: regional consistency, continental seriousness and a sense that football development could come from outside the capital.

Also read on Novastan: Pakhtakor Tashkent: The Club That Carries Uzbek Football’s Memory

Nasaf’s main symbol is the dragon. The club is widely nicknamed The Dragons, or Ajdarlar in Uzbek, and its official social-media identity has used the hashtag #FireDragons. The image suits the club’s modern identity. Unlike Pakhtakor, whose name evokes cotton and Soviet Uzbekistan, Nasaf’s dragon symbol suggests force, regional pride and a more contemporary football brand. For supporters in Qarshi, the dragon is not only a nickname; it is a way of turning a regional club into a recognisable national and Asian football image.

Nasaf’s popular culture is less nationally mythologised than Pakhtakor’s, but the club has its own fan identity. Online fan material includes songs such as Nasaf Ajdaholari – “Nasaf’s Dragons” – a title that draws directly on the club’s nickname. This is different from Pakhtakor’s place in Uzbek pop music: Nasaf’s cultural image is more regional and supporter-driven, tied to Qarshi pride, the dragon symbol and the memory of the 2011 AFC Cup victory.

Unlike Pakhtakor, Nasaf does not appear to have generated the same publicly visible literature of tragedy, memory and commemoration. Its story is preserved more through match reports, AFC retrospectives, fan media, club archives and the memory of decisive games, especially the 2011 AFC Cup final. This also says something about the club’s identity: Nasaf is less a monument to the past than a symbol of regional football ambition and institutional work.

Nasaf’s 2011 AFC Cup victory was not an isolated emotional moment. It became a reference point for the club’s identity. Nasaf returned to the AFC Cup final in 2021 and continued to appear regularly in Asian competitions. In recent years, it has also participated in the continent’s higher-level tournaments, showing that the 2011 win was not only a memory, but part of a longer process of institutional consolidation.

Domestically, Nasaf long carried a paradox. It was one of Uzbekistan’s strongest and most respected clubs, but for many years it had not won the national league. It collected cup titles, challenged the leading sides and built a strong reputation, yet the league crown remained elusive. That changed in 2024, when Nasaf finally won the Uzbekistan Super League. The title was more than another honour. It confirmed the club’s place as one of the country’s major football powers.

Nasaf has now won one Uzbek league title, four Uzbek Cups and four Uzbek Super Cups, alongside its 2011 AFC Cup triumph. This trophy list is not as large as Pakhtakor’s, but it tells a different story. Pakhtakor’s honours speak of dominance and hierarchy. Nasaf’s speak of persistence, regional ambition and gradual consolidation.

Also read on Novastan: L’Ouzbékistan savoure sa première participation à la Coupe du monde de football

The club is often associated with stability. Since the early 2010s, Ruziqul Berdiev has been one of the central figures in Nasaf’s modern identity. Long coaching cycles are rare in football, especially in post-Soviet leagues where clubs often change direction quickly. Nasaf’s relative continuity has helped shape its image as a structured club rather than only a spending project or temporary force.

Nasaf’s player history is closely linked to its 2011 breakthrough and to the current national-team cycle. Ilkhom Shomurodov, who scored in the AFC Cup final against Kuwait SC, remains one of the names most strongly associated with the club’s greatest night. Latvian international Andrejs Pereplotkins, who scored Nasaf’s second goal in that final, added an international dimension to the team. In the following years, players such as Turkmenistan international Artur Gevorkyan helped keep Nasaf competitive in the Berdiev era. Today, goalkeeper Abduvohid Nematov and defender Umar Eshmurodov connect the club directly to Uzbekistan’s first World Cup squad, showing that Nasaf’s role in the national team is not only historical, but current.

This is one of the reasons Nasaf matters for understanding Uzbek football today. It has not been built only around glamour, foreign stars or sudden ambition. Its image is closer to that of a working institution: a club that competes, develops, returns to Asian tournaments and gives Qarshi a permanent place on the football map.

What makes Nasaf distinctive is not only one trophy, but the kind of club it became. It is famous as the first Uzbek club to win the AFC Cup, after its 2-1 victory over Kuwait SC in Qarshi in 2011. It is famous as the club of Ajdarlar, the Dragons, a symbol that gives Nasaf a sharper modern identity than many post-Soviet teams. It is also famous for offering a regional counterweight to Tashkent: a club from Qarshi that could win in Asia, challenge domestically, develop players and eventually become national champion in 2024. In that sense, Nasaf is less a club of nostalgia than a club of proof – proof that Uzbek football could be built outside the capital.

Also read on Novastan: Discussions sur le développement du football féminin au Kazakhstan

The club’s importance also lies in what it says about the geography of Uzbek football. Tashkent remains central, and Pakhtakor remains the historic institution. But Uzbekistan’s football identity is broader: Qarshi, Namangan, Fergana, Samarkand, Bukhara, Almalyk and Termez all form part of the national map. Nasaf is the strongest argument that this map has become more balanced.

This regional dimension matters even more in the World Cup year. Uzbekistan’s qualification is often presented through the national team’s stars abroad, from Shomurodov to Khusanov. That is understandable. But the deeper story is domestic. Before players reach Istanbul, Manchester, Lens, Rome or other foreign clubs, they emerge from a football environment shaped by local teams, regional competitions, youth systems and national rivalries. Nasaf is one of the clubs that made this environment stronger.

The club also shows how Uzbek football has professionalised. Its Asian results, domestic trophies and ability to remain competitive over time suggest that success no longer depends only on capital-city prestige. Nasaf’s rise helps explain why Uzbekistan could build a national team with greater depth, stronger defensive organisation and players accustomed to competitive continental football.

For supporters in Qarshi, Nasaf’s success is also a matter of local pride. Football gives the city visibility in a country where Tashkent often dominates politics, media and national attention. When Nasaf won the AFC Cup in 2011, the victory was not only Uzbek. It was also Qarshi’s victory. It showed that the south of the country could host a continental final, win it, and make the rest of Asia look towards Qashqadaryo.

That is why Nasaf is the natural second chapter in this series. Pakhtakor explains where Uzbek football’s memory begins. Nasaf explains how Uzbek football became more geographically ambitious. One is the capital’s historic institution; the other is the regional club that turned consistency into continental success.

As Uzbekistan steps onto the World Cup stage, Nasaf’s role is therefore both practical and symbolic. It is practical because the club contributes players and competitive experience to the national ecosystem. It is symbolic because it represents the expansion of Uzbek football beyond Tashkent. If the White Wolves’ World Cup debut is a national achievement, Nasaf reminds us that the national story is built from regional foundations.

The road to the World Cup did not begin only in the stadiums of Europe, the Middle East or North America. It also ran through Qarshi, through Markaziy Stadium, through the night Nasaf beat Kuwait SC, and through the long work of a club that proved Uzbek football could be ambitious far from the capital.

Mathieu Lemoine, Editor-in-Chief for Novastan-English

The post Nasaf Qarshi: the club that put Uzbek football on Asia’s map appeared first on Novastan English.

Special series – The Clubs Behind Uzbekistan’s World Cup Dream

As Uzbekistan plays in its first-ever FIFA World Cup after a historic qualification campaign, Novastan looks at the clubs that shaped the country’s football identity. From Soviet-era Pakhtakor Tashkent to regional powerhouses such as Nasaf Qarshi, Navbahor Namangan and Neftchi Fergana, this series explores how club football helped build the foundations of the White Wolves’ rise.

As Uzbekistan makes its first appearance at the FIFA World Cup, attention naturally falls on the national team’s stars: Eldor Shomurodov, Abdukodir Khusanov, Abbosbek Fayzullaev and Fabio Cannavaro, the Italian World Cup winner now leading the White Wolves. But behind the historic debut lies a longer football story, one that begins not in North America, but in Tashkent.

That story begins with Pakhtakor.

Founded in 1956, Pakhtakor Tashkent became the main football symbol of Soviet Uzbekistan, later the dominant force of the independent Uzbek league, and above all the bearer of a national sporting trauma after the 1979 air disaster that killed much of its team. Today, as Uzbekistan enters the World Cup for the first time, Pakhtakor remains part of the national-team ecosystem. Current squad members such as Khojiakbar Alijonov, Sherzod Nasrullaev, Akmal Mozgovoy and Dostonbek Khamdamov play for the club. The World Cup may be a new stage for Uzbekistan, but the roots of Uzbek football’s visibility run through Pakhtakor.

Also read on Novastan: Uzbekistan at the World Cup: The White Wolves Enter the Global Stage

Pakhtakor was created in Tashkent on 8 April 1956, at a time when football in the Soviet Union was not only a sport, but also a system of representation. Clubs carried the identities of cities, factories, ministries, military institutions and republics. Pakhtakor carried Uzbekistan. Its name means “cotton grower” or “cotton picker”, a direct reference to the crop that defined the Uzbek SSR’s place in the Soviet planned economy.

The name matters. Cotton was not simply an agricultural product in Soviet Uzbekistan. It was a political and economic identity imposed on the republic, shaping landscapes, labour and the way Uzbekistan was imagined from Moscow. Pakhtakor’s name therefore linked football to a broader Soviet story: the republic that produced cotton now had a club that could represent it on the all-Union sporting stage.

The club’s identity is also visible in its Uzbek nicknames. Pakhtakor is known as Paxtakorlar, the Cotton Growers; Sherlar, the Lions; and Xalq jamoasi, the People’s Team. Together, these names capture three layers of meaning: labour and cotton, strength and pride, and the idea of a club that belongs not only to Tashkent, but to Uzbek football as a whole.

Also read on Novastan: A hundred years of Kyrgyz football

The club’s home, Pakhtakor Central Stadium, also became part of that identity. Built between 1954 and 1956 in central Tashkent’s Shaykhantahur district, it opened the same year as the club and became one of the main sporting arenas of Uzbekistan. Today it holds around 35,000 spectators after several renovations, but its symbolic weight is larger than its capacity. From 1992 until 2012, it was also the main home of the Uzbekistan national team, before the national side moved mainly to Milliy Stadium. For generations of supporters, Pakhtakor Central Stadium was not just a club ground, but one of the places where Uzbek football imagined itself nationally.

On 11 August 1979, Pakhtakor stopped being only a football club. The team was travelling to Minsk for a Soviet Top League match against Dinamo Minsk when its plane was involved in a mid-air collision over Soviet Ukraine. For many supporters, the first sign that something was wrong was not an official announcement, but an absence: the match did not appear among the day’s results. What followed became one of the deepest tragedies in Soviet and Uzbek sporting history.

The disaster matters because Pakhtakor had already become more than a team. In the Soviet Union, Moscow considered it desirable for each Soviet republic to be represented in the top football tier. Pakhtakor became the first Central Asian club to play at that level in 1959. It remained the only Uzbek club to appear in the Soviet top league and the only Central Asian club to reach a Soviet Cup final. For supporters in Tashkent and across Uzbekistan, Pakhtakor was proof that Uzbek football could appear on the all-Union stage.

The 1979 crash transformed that symbolism into memory. The team lost players and staff, including figures such as Mikhail An and Vladimir Fedorov, and the club’s tragedy became part of Uzbekistan’s collective football identity. In later decades, Pakhtakor would rebuild, win, dominate and represent the independent country abroad, but the memory of the lost generation remained central to how the club was understood.

Pakhtakor’s importance also extends beyond football. Few clubs in Central Asia have entered popular culture in the same way. The team has been celebrated in songs by well-known Uzbek performers, including Shahzoda, Bojalar, Rustam Gaipov, Kvartet and Ummon. Shahzoda released a music video titled Paxtakor, while Bojalar’s song Paxtakor turned the club into a pop refrain, with lyrics built around supporters, goals and collective confidence in the team. This musical presence matters: Pakhtakor is not only watched in stadiums; it has been sung as part of Uzbek urban and popular culture.

The 1979 tragedy also gave Pakhtakor a place in memorial culture. The lost team is remembered through monuments, annual commemorations, articles, documentaries and public storytelling. The memory of “Pakhtakor-79” is often compared to the Munich air disaster of Manchester United’s Busby Babes: a football team turned into a national symbol of loss, youth and interrupted promise.

Also read on Novastan: L’Ouzbékistan savoure sa première participation à la Coupe du monde de football

This is why Pakhtakor is different from most football clubs. It is a sports institution, but also a cultural reference. Its name evokes cotton and Soviet Uzbekistan; its stadium evokes Tashkent’s football geography; its songs evoke popular pride; and its tragedy evokes collective memory. To write about Pakhtakor is therefore to write not only about football, but about how Uzbekistan remembers, celebrates and narrates itself.

Pakhtakor’s history is also a history of players who shaped Uzbek football across different periods. Berador Abduraimov, one of the greatest footballers produced by Uzbekistan, became a Soviet Top League top scorer while playing for Pakhtakor and later coached independent Uzbekistan to its 1994 Asian Games title. Gennadi Krasnitsky, another legendary Pakhtakor striker, became so closely associated with goalscoring that Uzbekistan later created a scorers’ club in his memory. In the late Soviet and early post-Soviet periods, names such as Gennadi Denisov and Igor Shkvyrin connected Pakhtakor to continuity and renewal.

In the independent era, players such as Server Djeparov and Odil Ahmedov helped link the club to the modern national team and to Uzbekistan’s growing football presence abroad. Djeparov became one of the country’s most decorated footballers, while Ahmedov’s later career in Russia and China showed how Uzbek players could move into larger football markets. Today, Dostonbek Khamdamov offers another link between Pakhtakor and the current national-team story: once one of Asia’s most promising young players, he returned to the club and entered the World Cup cycle as part of Cannavaro’s squad.

After independence, Pakhtakor became the powerhouse of the new Uzbek league. The club has won 16 Uzbek league titles, 14 Uzbek Cups and 2 Uzbek Super Cups, making it the most decorated side in the country’s post-Soviet football history. This domestic dominance, especially during the 2000s, made Pakhtakor the reference point against which other clubs were measured. The club became associated with professionalism, hierarchy and expectation: the team everyone wanted to beat, and the team expected to represent Uzbekistan abroad.

Also read on Novastan: Discussions sur le développement du football féminin au Kazakhstan

That dominance also created rivalries. In the Soviet period, Pakhtakor’s most symbolic opponent was Kairat Almaty, then the leading club of Kazakhstan. Their meetings were remembered as a kind of Central Asian derby, a football expression of the broader Uzbekistan-Kazakhstan rivalry within the Soviet Union. After independence, Pakhtakor’s rivalries became more domestic. Matches against Bunyodkor Tashkent developed into a capital derby, especially after Bunyodkor’s rise in the 2000s. Games against Neftchi Fergana became one of the classic rivalries of the Uzbek league, linking Tashkent’s historic powerhouse with one of the strongest clubs of the early independence period. More broadly, matches against clubs such as Navbahor Namangan, Lokomotiv Tashkent and Nasaf Qarshi have often carried the weight of regional pride and competition against Pakhtakor’s capital-city dominance.

Pakhtakor’s history is also a story of ownership and state power. Like many post-Soviet clubs, it has never been only a private sporting institution. In 2017, SFI Management Group was reported to have acquired an 80 percent stake in Pakhtakor under investment obligations, with a commitment to invest in the club’s infrastructure. Later, the club became associated with businessman and former Tashkent mayor Jahongir Artikkhodjayev, who has been listed as club president and described in Uzbek media as the club’s owner. In January 2024, Uzbekistan’s State Assets Management Agency put 100 percent of the state share in Pakhtakor Football Club LLC up for sale, before temporarily suspending the privatisation process after public reaction.

This makes Pakhtakor not only a football institution, but also a case study in how Uzbek sport sits at the intersection of public assets, private capital and national prestige. These ownership debates show why Pakhtakor still matters in 2026. It is not a museum club remembered only for Soviet history or the 1979 tragedy. It remains a living institution in Uzbek football: a producer of national-team players, a target for rivals, a symbol of Tashkent’s football power and a club whose future reflects wider questions about investment, privatisation and the role of the state in Uzbek sport.

In Asian competition, Pakhtakor came close to a larger breakthrough. It reached the AFC Champions League semi-finals in 2003 and 2004, showing that Uzbek club football could compete beyond the domestic league. In more recent years, the club has remained part of Uzbekistan’s continental presence, including participation in Asia’s elite club competitions. Yet Pakhtakor never quite turned continental visibility into an Asian title. That absence is important, because it shows both the club’s strength and the limits of Uzbek football’s capital-centred model.

That is why the story of Uzbek club football cannot end in Tashkent. Pakhtakor carries the memory, prestige and institutional weight of the game. But the first major Asian club title won by an Uzbek side would come from elsewhere: from Nasaf Qarshi. If Pakhtakor is the memory of Uzbek football, Nasaf is the beginning of its modern regional ambition.

As Uzbekistan steps onto the World Cup stage, Pakhtakor’s role is therefore double. It is present in the squad through current players, but it is also present as history. Before Shomurodov, Khusanov and Fayzullaev carried the White Wolves into the global spotlight, Pakhtakor had already carried Uzbek football into Soviet stadiums, through tragedy, into independence, and towards Asia. The World Cup is new. The dream behind it is not.

Mathieu Lemoine, Editor-in-Chief for Novastan-English

The post Pakhtakor Tashkent: The Club That Carries Uzbek Football’s Memory appeared first on Novastan English.

Documentary filmmaker and visual anthropologist Almira Saifullina explores how landscapes preserve traces of Soviet violence, forced displacement and family memory. In this interview with Novastan, she discusses her new film project DALA, the legacy of Karlag in Central Kazakhstan, the risks of aestheticizing historical trauma, and her earlier work in Mongolia and Uzbekistan.

Novastan: Could you introduce yourself to Novastan’s readers? How would you describe your path into cinema, visual anthropology and documentary research?

Faites un don à Novastan

Almira Saifullina: My name is Almira Saifullina. I am a documentary filmmaker and visual anthropologist.

My journey began with a passion for documentary photography at a young age. With the first money I ever earned, I bought a camera and started photographing the world around me. My first conscious attempt to explore people’s lives through a camera came in 2011, when I travelled across Uzbekistan and created my first photo series. Looking back, I think that was my first step into documentary filmmaking and visual anthropology, although at the time I did not know those disciplines had names.

I continued searching for my own language and tools, and in 2014 I enrolled at the Moscow School of New Cinema. There I met friends and like-minded collaborators with whom I began making films. In 2022, after several years working in documentary cinema, I realised that I wanted to give a new form to my visual method and expand the boundaries of how knowledge and art can be produced. I enrolled in a master’s programme in Visual Anthropology in Berlin. That experience gave a new impulse to my work.

You have lived and worked in different cities and countries, including Kyiv, Kazakhstan, Moscow and elsewhere. How has this personal geography influenced your perspective as a filmmaker?

I was born in Kyiv, where my father was completing postgraduate studies. Three months later, however, we left because of the Chernobyl disaster and returned to Karaganda, in central Kazakhstan, where my family comes from.

After that came many moves across Kazakhstan: Almaty in the 1990s, Astana in the 2000s, then Moscow, and later the wider world. I have had a fairly nomadic biography, moving between cities and countries since birth.

I think this path has allowed me not to become trapped within a single locality. It has given me a broader view of the world and made me more open to different cultures. At the same time, there are disadvantages. I cannot describe myself as a filmmaker of one particular country, nor can I fully claim any place as my own in every sense. I do not possess a deeply local insider’s perspective. In that sense, it is a double-edged sword.

How did Kazakhstan become part of your biography and creative imagination? What does it mean for you to film and research Kazakhstan today?

Kazakhstan is my homeland and a place of constant return. My family lives there, and my ancestors are buried there.

For the past several years, I have been working on a new film with the working title DALA, which is my first film shot in Kazakhstan.

At the same time, it is a difficult project because I do not have the same distance that I had when filming in Mongolia or Uzbekistan. Many things pass directly through me. They affect me emotionally and draw me into the history of my own family.

Yet I also feel an absolute artistic and personal necessity to make a film in my homeland, however emotionally demanding that may be.

In some ways, I am glad that I am making a film in Kazakhstan now, after having gained substantial experience in documentary cinema. It allows me to engage with complex themes while focusing more on meaning and less on the practical challenges of production.

You studied economics at Moscow State University before turning to filmmaking and later studying directing at the Moscow School of New Cinema. How did that transition happen? Were there any films, directors or artistic discoveries that particularly influenced your decision to pursue cinema?

Since childhood, I have been drawn to art and to expressing myself through it. Studying economics at Moscow State University was more of a compromise shaped by circumstances than a genuine passion for economics.

When I moved to Moscow in 2005, however, I discovered auteur cinema. Someone introduced me to the Mir Iskusstva cinema, which at the time was a gathering place for young people who wanted to study, watch and even make a different kind of cinema. They screened masterpieces from around the world.

I spent nearly all my free time there. Those films were a revelation.

The real turning point came when I discovered the work of Artavazd Peleshian. Through his short films, I felt the magic and power of cinema. They awakened in me an irresistible desire to work in film and to make the invisible visible.

What did the Moscow School of New Cinema give you in terms of artistic method, discipline and freedom? Were there teachers, directors, films or exercises that changed the way you observe people and spaces?

More than anything, the Moscow School of New Cinema gave me close friends and like-minded collaborators. They became my greatest source of inspiration.

Together we explored cinema, dramaturgy, cinematography and editing. We experimented with form and language, discussed ideas endlessly, and learned by making films together.

I studied there at the very beginning of the school’s history, what I consider its golden period. It was a fortunate moment when we were not yet concerned with industry questions such as funding, distribution, professional status or careers. We existed entirely within the space of art and ideas. We dreamed about cinema and searched for ourselves through it.

We supported one another and worked on each other’s films with complete commitment and enthusiasm. It was a very special environment. It gave me an important foundation, and the discoveries that emerged from that collective experience profoundly shaped the way I observe life and transform it into cinema.

Your work sits at the intersection of documentary cinema, visual anthropology and practice-based research. Do you see yourself primarily as a filmmaker, a researcher, an anthropologist, or someone who moves between these roles?

First and foremost, I see myself as an author.

Filmmaking, research and visual anthropology are different angles, different tools and different methods. Yet they all follow the same trajectory. I observe the world, study it, live through it and reflect on it. Then I materialise that knowledge in one form or another so that it can be shared with others.

For me, a film is not an illustration of research that has already been completed. The process of making a film itself – observation, filming, being present in a space, building relationships with participants, and later working with the material through editing- becomes a form of research.

Very often, it is during filming or editing that I begin to understand things I could neither see nor articulate beforehand. Cinema is therefore not only a form of expression for me; it is also a way of producing knowledge.

I move between these different roles and sometimes blend them together, but for me they are all parts of the same process. I believe that the intersection of anthropological inquiry and documentary filmmaking is where some of the most interesting forms and subjects are emerging today. In many ways, that intersection is not the future anymore- it is already the present.

Novastan est le seul média en français et en allemand spécialisé sur l'Asie centrale. Entièrement associatif, il fonctionne grâce à votre participation. Nous sommes indépendants et pour le rester, nous avons besoin de vous ! Vous pouvez nous soutenir à partir de 2 euros par mois (défiscalisé à 66 %), ou en devenant membre actif par ici.

Your current project DALA focuses on Soviet forced deportations, labour camps and industrial experiments in Central Kazakhstan. How did this project begin?

This project grew out of my interest in the history of my home region, Karaganda and the wider Karaganda oblast. I would regularly travel there, filming the steppe and sites of memory, visiting former Gulag camp territories. For a long time, however, this remained more of a personal historical interest.

In 2022, I began to see this history from a different perspective and realized that it concerned me much more deeply than I had previously understood. My own family arrived in Central Kazakhstan as a result of forced displacement. The family of my great-grandfather, who was a mullah, was deported from Orenburg to the Karaganda steppe. I grew up in a region whose population was largely shaped by deportations, exile, labour camps and the industrialization that followed.

Over the last two years, together with my cinematographer, I have travelled across the steppe in search of camp remains, former camp settlements, buildings, burial sites and other traces of this history. Gradually, these journeys became more than a process of collecting material. They turned into a way of understanding how the violence of the past continues to exist within the contemporary landscape, within family memory and within the very structure of the region itself.

DALA means “steppe” in Kazakh. Why did the steppe become the central image and space of the project?

Because the steppe is a blank canvas upon which people and historical events have drawn their own picture. It is like a guiding thread, a silent protagonist that follows you everywhere, a place where you inevitably encounter things you would often rather avoid.

The steppe is a silent witness to what human beings do. It is a place of life and death, suffering, memory, cruelty and violence, but also of humility and mercy.

In the film, the steppe becomes more than an image or a backdrop. It becomes a space of inquiry. We move through it in search of camp remains and historical artefacts that have sometimes almost completely merged with the landscape itself.

You describe the steppe as a kind of archive. What can the landscape tell us about violence, memory and history that documents or official archives often cannot?

The steppe offers a direct, physical encounter with history.

When local historians show you how a transit camp was organized, how the camp system functioned, where prisoners were transported from and to, when you enter a prison building and find yourself inside a punishment cell, or stand inside a barrack where prisoners once lived, you immediately gain a different understanding of historical events, their significance, the conditions people endured and the realities they experienced.

No document can provide that kind of experience.

It is a form of immersion into history through space and through one’s own body.

At the same time, the landscape does not speak directly. Very often, what you see is simply steppe, ruins or an ordinary house. You need to search, listen to local residents and regional historians, and compare what you see with archival sources and testimonies. Only then does the landscape begin to reveal itself as an archive.

For readers unfamiliar with this history, could you explain what the Karaganda camp system, or Karlag, was? Why is it so important for understanding Soviet repression in Kazakhstan?

It is important to understand Karlag not as a single camp surrounded by barbed wire, but as a vast and highly complex system of camp branches, farms, industrial enterprises and settlements spread across a significant part of Central Kazakhstan.

Karlag was established in 1931 and reported directly to the central Gulag administration in Moscow. Its administrative centre was located in the settlement of Dolinka, near Karaganda.

The territory of Karlag stretched roughly 300 kilometres from north to south and 200 kilometres from west to east. By the early 1950s, the system included more than two hundred camp branches and facilities.

In many ways, Karlag functioned as a state within a state, with its own administration, production system, agricultural sector, transport network, prisons and vast numbers of forced labourers.

Prisoners and special settlers were used as labour for the development of agriculture, construction, mining and the coal and metallurgical industries of Central Kazakhstan. Karlag was therefore not only a system of punishment and isolation. It was also one of the key instruments of Soviet industrialization and the colonial development of the region.

Karlag is essential to understanding Kazakhstan’s history because labour camps, mass deportations and forced labour all played a role in creating the modern face of the region: its cities, mines, factories, roads and multi-ethnic population.

This is not a separate chapter of history that existed somewhere outside ordinary life. In many respects, it is one of the foundations upon which contemporary Central Kazakhstan was built.

What traces of Karlag and other forms of Soviet violence remain visible today: buildings, ruins, archives, graves, family stories, silences, industrial landscapes?

There are many traces, although not all of them are immediately recognized as traces of violence.

The former Karlag administration building in Dolinka still stands and now houses a museum. Individual prison facilities, barracks, agricultural buildings, camp settlements, railway stations through which prisoners arrived, and transport routes have also survived.

There are mass graves, the Spassk Memorial, and “Mamochkino Cemetery”, where women prisoners and children connected to the Karlag system were buried.

Yet much of this history is not preserved in museums or memorials.

Some former camp buildings are still inhabited. Others have become ruins or have nearly disappeared into the steppe. Sometimes all that remains of a camp site is a foundation, part of a wall, fragments of wire, a few trees or a subtle change in the landscape that would be impossible to identify without the explanation of a local historian.

There are also Soviet archives, personal files, photographs, letters, memoirs of former prisoners and special settlers, family archives and oral histories passed down through generations.

Family memory often preserves things that official documents do not: how a person arrived in Kazakhstan, what happened to them, how the family survived, what they chose to forget or what they were afraid to discuss.

And, of course, one of the most important traces is the industrial landscape of Central Kazakhstan itself. Mines, factories, railways and workers’ settlements are now seen as natural parts of the region, even though many were created or developed through the labour of prisoners and special settlers.

The traces of Karlag are therefore everywhere. They often remain invisible precisely because they have become part of everyday life.

How do people living in these places today relate to this history? Is it present in everyday life, or does it remain marginalized and largely invisible?

This is a densely populated region, so I would be cautious about making broad generalizations.

Most people know the history of the region to some extent. For many, the history of repression, deportation, exile and subsequent industrial development forms part of their own family history.

A significant proportion of the region’s non-Kazakh population still lives there today: Germans, Koreans, Chechens, Russians, Ukrainians, Tatars and many others. Yet the reasons why these communities arrived in Kazakhstan differ greatly, and it would be inaccurate to reduce all of these histories solely to repression and deportation.

I would say that this history is present in everyday life in a fragmented way.

Some people know in great detail how their family arrived there and preserve documents, photographs and stories. Others know only fragments. Still others view the mining towns, workers’ settlements and multi-ethnic character of the region as something entirely natural, without questioning how these realities came into existence.

As a result, the past is simultaneously everywhere and almost invisible. It exists in surnames, family histories, buildings, cemeteries and the layout of cities, but it is not always explicitly recognized as the product of specific historical policies.

How is Kazakhstan engaging today with the memory of Soviet repression? Are there museums, archives, research centres, NGOs or memorial initiatives supporting this work?

In recent years, Kazakhstan has undertaken substantial state-led work in this field.

A State Commission for the Full Rehabilitation of Victims of Political Repression was established. Hundreds of thousands of people have been rehabilitated. Large numbers of archival documents have been declassified, collections of materials have been published and a unified electronic database has been created.

There are state museums dedicated to Karlag in Dolinka and ALZHIR near Astana, as well as regional museums, archives and research projects. Every year on May 31st, Kazakhstan commemorates the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Political Repression and Famine. Numerous memorials and monuments dedicated to victims of repression and the Asharshylyk famine have also been erected.

It would therefore be incorrect to say that the state is doing nothing or that this history is completely silenced. On the contrary, it has been officially acknowledged, and a tremendous amount of material has been collected and made accessible in recent years.

However, in my view, this remains insufficient, particularly when it comes to drawing lessons from this history and critically examining contemporary social and political processes through the lens of how the Soviet system, and especially Stalinist repression in the 1930s-1950s, shaped present-day Kazakhstan.

I believe there is a need for more civic initiatives devoted to working through this difficult past. This work should not be confined to official history, state archives, museums and commemorative dates. It should also exist within civic discourse.

Memory should not be preserved exclusively within state institutions. It should remain a living and open space where difficult questions can be asked.

What remains the most difficult aspect of this work of memory today: access to archives, recognition of victims, public interest, political sensitivity or passing memory on to younger generations?

Perhaps the most difficult challenge is transforming documents, museums, monuments and official commemorations into a living public engagement with the past.

Archives can be opened, victims rehabilitated and monuments erected, but that does not necessarily mean that society has truly reflected on what happened.

The consequences of repression remain present in families, in the fear of speaking openly, in attitudes toward the state, and in lost histories and identities.

The subject remains politically sensitive, but that is precisely why honest and open engagement is so important for Kazakh society.

For younger generations, it is not enough simply to transmit facts. We need to create spaces in which this history can provoke genuine questions.

How can filmmakers represent sites of historical violence without aestheticizing suffering or turning memory into spectacle?

I do not yet have a definitive answer to that question. In many ways, I am still working through it as part of this film.

The risk of aestheticization is particularly high in the steppe because the steppe is inherently beautiful and cinematic. A camera can very easily transform a site of violence into a beautiful landscape and thereby obscure what actually happened there.

I do not want to reconstruct suffering, artificially intensify emotions or turn camp ruins into scenery.

I am more interested in sustained observation of space and material traces, in working with archives, with the voices of descendants and with silence itself.

I hope that the final form of the film will emerge through the process of filming and editing.

Novastan est le seul média en français et en allemand spécialisé sur l'Asie centrale. Entièrement associatif, il fonctionne grâce à votre participation. Nous sommes indépendants et pour le rester, nous avons besoin de vous ! Vous pouvez nous soutenir à partir de 2 euros par mois (défiscalisé à 66 %), ou en devenant membre actif par ici.

Your film My Father Genghis Khan was shot in Mongolia. Why did you turn to Mongolia, and what made you realize that this experience could become a full-length film?

I first encountered Mongolia through a photo essay published in Russian Reporter magazine by the renowned photographer Sergey Maximishin. It told the story of a ballerina from a ger district. Her name was Baska. She attended ballet school in Ulaanbaatar and then returned home to the ger settlements on the outskirts of the city.

I was struck by the contrast between the different realities in which she lived, particularly on a visual level.

Through Maximishin, I got in touch with her. We initially became acquainted remotely. I then invited my classmate and cinematographer, Leonid Nikiforenko, to travel with me and make a film. At the time, it sounded like a complete adventure, but we both believed in it and decided to go.

When we arrived in Mongolia and saw everything with our own eyes, it became clear that our protagonist was not only Baska herself, but also the reality surrounding her and the people living within it.

Watch the trailer here: My Father Genghis Khan

Everything looked incredibly cinematic. We felt a strong desire to film, and as often happens in such situations, the film seemed to come to us on its own – or rather, into our camera.

We filmed not only in Ulaanbaatar but also in provincial areas where nomadic ways of life remained much more visible in everyday life.

What did you observe in Mongolia regarding the transition from rural or nomadic life to Ulaanbaatar? How visible was this shift in housing, infrastructure, work, air pollution and family life?

We filmed the documentary ten years ago, and I am sure many things have changed since then. At the time, however, there was a strong sense that Mongolia was undergoing rapid economic, political and social transformation.

At the same time, there was also a feeling of uncertainty, as though many people were struggling to keep pace with these changes.

This was particularly visible in Ulaanbaatar, where large numbers of former nomads were moving and attempting to adapt to urban life. Such a transition inevitably created numerous social challenges: a radically different way of life, unemployment, and the difficulties of adjusting to both city life and permanent settlement.

People arriving in the city rarely moved directly into apartments. Instead, they first set up their gers on the outskirts, in the now well-known ger districts. Many lacked sewage systems, reliable heating and other forms of urban infrastructure. This situation contributed significantly to the severe air pollution affecting the city.

In the provinces, life seemed to change more slowly. There, it was still possible to immerse oneself more deeply in nomadic culture, which remained an important part of everyday life, even as it continued to evolve under the influence of modern civilization.

Many people associate both Kazakhstan and Mongolia with nomadic life, yurts and the steppe. Beyond these images, what deeper similarities did you notice between the two countries?

When I first arrived in Mongolia to make the film, I saw a picture that strongly reminded me of Kazakhstan in the 1990s and early 2000s.

It was largely an intuitive and visual impression: new architecture rising in the middle of the steppe, a fascination with large-scale projects, fragmented infrastructure and a broader atmosphere of transition.

Both countries were experiencing rapid urbanization, the expansion of their capitals, internal migration and a pronounced divide between the centre and the periphery.

At the same time, Mongolia followed its own distinct historical trajectory. It was never formally part of the Soviet Union, although it was strongly influenced by it. In my view, Mongolia had more opportunities to preserve aspects of its traditional way of life.

In everyday life, Buddhism and shamanism are far more visible there, as is the direct connection to the land and to nomadic culture.

Kazakhstan, by contrast, underwent far more extensive industrialization, collectivization and forced transformation of traditional lifestyles.

As a result, the apparent similarity of the steppe landscapes conceals very different historical experiences.

In Mulberry, you portray Bukhara through the story of Bekhzod, a young man entering adulthood through marriage and traditional rites of passage. Why Bukhara, why Bekhzod, and what did his story reveal about masculinity and patriarchy in Uzbekistan?

I first came to Bukhara in 2011, and this remarkable city resonated deeply with me. I returned several times afterwards.

Sometimes certain places create the feeling that you are coming home. That is exactly what happened to me in Bukhara, and it made me want to make a film there.

From the beginning, I was drawn to the image of the mulberry tree standing in the courtyard of the Kalyan Mosque, as well as to the local culture and daily life that I wanted to explore beyond the usual tourist routes.

Watch the trailer here: Mulberry

By chance, I met Bekhzod. He helped me find my hostel in the old city. Later, I realised that he would become my guide into Bukhara’s inner life.

By following Bekhzod and the events unfolding in his life, I gradually discovered the film’s central theme, its conflict and its narrative direction.

For me, Bekhzod’s story became a story about constrained choices and predetermined life paths within a patriarchal society, where men, especially young men, can become just as trapped by traditional norms and social hierarchies as women, although in different ways.

This pressure rarely appears openly. It is seldom discussed publicly and often remains internalized, sometimes even unconsciously. Yet it exerts a significant emotional burden.

How did you film in Bukhara given the strong separation of male and female spaces in certain contexts? How did you gain access to rituals, family interiors or religious spaces such as mosques?

I spent roughly four years with Bekhzod and his family, and during that time we developed close and trusting relationships.

I entered the family circle as a guest, which meant I was invited to family celebrations, wedding rituals and religious ceremonies. Quite quickly, the protagonists stopped paying attention to the camera.

Access to mosques during religious rituals was indeed more complicated because I am a woman filming men. I tried to work discreetly and respectfully, remaining sensitive both to the events themselves and to the people involved.

Another friend from Bukhara, whom I met during the making of the film, also helped me obtain filming permissions when necessary.

For Novastan readers interested in discovering your work, where can they watch DALA, My Father Genghis Khan, Mulberry and your other films? Are they available online, at festivals, through private screeners, streaming platforms or upon request?

Work on DALA is still ongoing, so the film is not yet available for viewing.

My Father Genghis Khan can already be watched online, and I hope that Mulberry will soon become available on one of the online streaming platforms as well.

At the same time, readers are always welcome to contact me directly. I am happy to share viewing links to my films upon request.

Interview with Almira Saifullina by Mathieu Lemoine, Editor-in-Chief for Novastan-English, and Maya Ivanova, Contributor for Novastan-English

Thank you for reading this article! If you have time, we would appreciate your feedback, either through this anonymous form or by email at editorial@novastan.org. Thank you very much!

The post Almira Saifullina: “The steppe is an archive of violence, memory and silence” appeared first on Novastan English.

Some books are interesting because they tell a story. The Sands of Oxus: Boyhood Reminiscences of Sadriddin Aini is interesting because it captures an entire world at the moment before it disappears.

Through the eyes of a clever, frightened and observant boy in late nineteenth-century Bukhara, Sadriddin Aini turns childhood into history. Village schools, sandstorms, canals, cholera, hunger, superstition, poetry, cruelty and humour all pass through the same narrow lanes.

The result is more than a memoir: it is a portrait of old Central Asia, and a quiet explanation of why that world could not remain unchanged.

Why the past refused to become propaganda

Originally published in Tajik as Yoddoštho / Ёддоштҳо between 1949 and 1954 in Stalinabad (now Dushanbe), The Sands of Oxus: Boyhood Reminiscences of Sadriddin Aini, appeared in English in 1998. Published at a time when Soviet writers were often expected to celebrate factories, production and Stalinist progress, Aini instead returned to childhood. That choice matters because the book is not a nostalgic retreat into the past. It is Aini’s attempt to explain how a child of old Bukhara became a modern writer, reformer and Soviet-era national figure.

Also read on Novastan: “Hafiz Saifullaev’s prose marks a fruitful turning point in Russian-language Tajik literature”

The book begins in rural Bukhara, among village celebrations, halva workshops, shifting sands, irrigation canals, family disputes, religious lessons, fasting, fairs, harvests and death. Aini writes about the physical struggle of everyday life: villagers fighting sandstorms, digging canals, enduring hunger and disease. But he also captures the mental universe of the time: fear of demons, belief in exorcism, the authority of religious teachers, the prestige of Persian poetry and the weight of inherited customs.

One of the most striking things about the book is that it does not read like simple Soviet propaganda. Aini certainly condemns the old order. Poverty, superstition, arbitrary power, clerical abuse and social cruelty appear throughout the book. However, the book does not present history as a clean march from darkness to socialism. Lenin is absent; Saadi is present. Poetry often matters more than ideology.

That ambiguity made Aini’s work powerful, but also politically delicate. Aini was not an anti-Soviet dissident, and Yoddoštho was published in the Soviet Union. The memoirs could be read as anti-feudal, anti-clerical and pro-enlightenment, which made them acceptable to Soviet editors. Yet his writing sat uneasily within Soviet nationality policy. It preserved a Persianate world of Islamic learning, village ethics, oral memory and Bukharan social complexity. It helped build modern Tajik identity while also describing a shared Central Asian past that did not fit neatly into Soviet national borders.

Bukhara between Tajik and Uzbek memory

The renewed relevance of The Sands of Oxus lies in the fact that Central Asia is once again debating its past. Jadidism, Bukhara, colonialism, Soviet modernisation, Islamic heritage, national identity and the relationship between Uzbek and Tajik cultural histories are all being reconsidered.

Aini stands exactly at that intersection. He was born in what is now Uzbekistan, wrote across Tajik and Uzbek contexts, and described Bukhara, a city central to both national narratives. His memoirs are therefore not only personal recollections. They are an archive of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Central Asian life: village customs, schools, professions, beliefs, family structures and social hierarchies.

This is why the book speaks so strongly today. It recalls a Central Asia before national borders hardened, when Persianate culture, Turkic speech, Islamic education, local identities and imperial pressures overlapped in complicated ways.

In Tajikistan: a national classic

In Tajikistan, Aini is foundational. He is not simply a writer, but a national institution: the father of modern Tajik prose, a builder of the literary language, and a figure through whom Tajik Soviet and post-Soviet identity have been narrated.

For Tajik readers, Yoddoštho is more than an autobiography. It is almost a national archive. Through Aini’s childhood, Bukhara becomes part of a recoverable Tajik past. Village life, old schools, artisans, religious figures, intellectuals and reformers all become elements of a literary homeland.

The book therefore carries emotional and cultural weight. It preserves a world that Tajik national memory claims as central to its own formation.

In Uzbekistan: a shared but sensitive legacy

In Uzbekistan, Aini’s reception is more layered. He belongs to Uzbek literary history as well: he lived in Bukhara and Samarkand, wrote in Uzbek contexts, and engaged with the Jadid and Soviet transformations of the region.

Yet his legacy is sensitive because his work also helped define a distinct Tajik literary identity, often by presenting Persian-speaking Bukhara as a central part of Tajik cultural history. In a country where Bukhara is one of the great symbols of Uzbek heritage, this creates a complex overlap rather than a simple national ownership.

Today, as Uzbekistan revalorises Jadidism and revisits its early modern intellectual history, Aini can be read in a new way: not only as a Soviet Tajik monument, but as a Bukharan intellectual whose life crossed the Uzbek-Tajik divide.

Before borders hardened

Beyond Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, The Sands of Oxus is less of a national classic, but it remains an important regional text. In Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan, Aini does not occupy the same canonical place as national literary figures such as Abai, Chingiz Aitmatov or Makhtumkuli. Yet his memoirs illuminate a shared Central Asian problem: how traditional authority, religious education, rural poverty, imperial pressure and Soviet modernisation interacted before borders and national canons became fixed.

Also read on Novastan: Central Asia through the lens of… Behzod Boltayev

The book is therefore valuable not only for Tajik or Uzbek readers, but for anyone interested in how Central Asia entered the twentieth century.

A past too complex for Soviet ideology

The Sands of Oxus is not a fast book, but it is a rewarding one. Its power lies in detail: a schoolroom, a sandstorm, a canal, a death, a rumour, a poem, a beating, a feast. Through these fragments, Aini turns childhood into a map of pre-Soviet Central Asia.

The book refuses to belong neatly to one category. It is Tajik and Bukharan, Persianate and Soviet, autobiographical and political, nostalgic and accusatory. That refusal is exactly what makes it so relevant today. At a time when Central Asian states are reassessing Jadidism, Soviet rule, colonial legacies and the ownership of cities such as Bukhara, Aini’s memoirs are a reminder that the region’s past cannot be divided cleanly into today’s national narratives. They show a world where Persianate culture, Islamic learning, rural poverty and early reformist politics overlapped before Soviet borders turned shared histories into competing national legacies.

Maya Ivanova, Author for Novastan-English and Mathieu Lemoine, Editor-in-Chief for Novastan-English

The post Bukhara Before the Border: Aini and the Politics of Tajik-Uzbek Memory appeared first on Novastan English.

For its first-ever appearance at the FIFA World Cup, Uzbekistan arrives in North America with more than a football story. Around Eldor Shomurodov, Abdukodir Khusanov, Fabio Cannavaro and a generation shaped by both domestic clubs and foreign leagues, the White Wolves carry the hopes of a country eager to be seen on the global stage. Between Tashkent, Qarshi, Namangan, Istanbul, Manchester and the Uzbek communities of New York and Toronto, the 2026 World Cup could become a defining moment for Uzbek football and for Central Asia’s sporting visibility.

In Uzbekistan, the qualification has already been framed as the fulfilment of a long national wait. The documentary series 34 yillik orzu – “A 34-year dream” – follows the national team’s path to the World Cup as a story of near misses, collective frustration and eventual breakthrough. The film captures something essential about the moment: for Uzbekistan, this tournament is not simply a debut. It is the end of a long cycle of waiting.

That emotional weight matters. Uzbekistan is not a country without football culture. Since independence, the national team has repeatedly approached the World Cup without crossing the final threshold. Clubs such as Pakhtakor Tashkent, Nasaf Qarshi, Bunyodkor Tashkent and Navbahor Namangan have kept Uzbek football visible in Asian competitions, while generations of players built careers across Russia, Türkiye, Iran, the Gulf and, increasingly, Western Europe. What is new in 2026 is not the existence of Uzbek football. It is its arrival on the biggest stage.

A difficult group, but not an impossible story

Uzbekistan’s Group K is unforgiving. Portugal, Colombia and DR Congo all arrive with deeper World Cup histories or stronger reputations. In the latest ranking snapshot used by tournament previews, Portugal are fifth in the world, Colombia thirteenth, DR Congo forty-sixth and Uzbekistan fiftieth. The gap with Portugal and Colombia is substantial. The gap with DR Congo is much narrower.

Also read on Novastan: L’Ouzbékistan savoure sa première participation à la Coupe du monde de football

That makes the group both intimidating and open-ended. Portugal are clear favourites, with the experience and attacking quality to dominate possession. Colombia bring the rhythm, confidence and technical maturity of a strong South American side. DR Congo offer physical power, European-based talent and emotional momentum after returning to the tournament. Uzbekistan, on paper, are the lowest-ranked team in the group. But they are not a ceremonial debutant.

Their opening match against Colombia, followed by Portugal and DR Congo, gives the tournament a clear narrative arc. The first two fixtures will test whether Uzbekistan can survive against technically superior opponents. The final match against DR Congo may determine whether their debut becomes only symbolic or genuinely competitive.

The path to qualification

Uzbekistan’s qualification was built on consistency rather than a single miracle. In the decisive phase of Asian qualifying, the team showed defensive discipline, maturity and the ability to manage pressure away from home. The historic moment came on 5 June 2025, when Uzbekistan drew 0-0 with the United Arab Emirates in Abu Dhabi. The result secured a top-two finish in their group and confirmed the country’s first World Cup qualification since joining the Asian Football Confederation.

It was an understated way to make history: no dramatic late winner, no avalanche of goals, but a controlled result away from home. Goalkeeper Utkir Yusupov, who plays for Navbahor, made important saves, and the team managed the match with the calm of a side that had learned from previous failed campaigns.

Five days later, Uzbekistan completed the campaign with a 3-0 win over Qatar in Tashkent. The symbolism was strong. The qualification had been secured abroad, but the celebration came at home, in front of supporters who had waited for more than three decades to see their national team reach the World Cup.

Cannavaro, prestige and pressure

Fabio Cannavaro’s presence gives Uzbekistan an instantly recognisable figure. As Italy’s 2006 World Cup-winning captain and Ballon d’Or winner, he embodies elite defensive culture and global football prestige. His appointment also creates an interesting paradox. Uzbekistan qualified under Timur Kapadze, but will play the World Cup under Cannavaro.

This makes Cannavaro less the architect of qualification than the man responsible for translating that achievement into a credible tournament performance. His challenge is clear: to give the team structure, confidence and emotional control against opponents who are used to this level.

Tactically, Uzbekistan are unlikely to dominate the ball in Group K. Their prospects depend on compact defending, disciplined midfield spacing, rapid transitions and the ability to make set pieces count. Against Portugal and Colombia, patience may matter more than ambition. Against DR Congo, physical resilience may be just as important as technique.

Shomurodov, the captain who opened the path

Uzbekistan’s World Cup story inevitably begins with Eldor Shomurodov, the Istanbul Basaksehir forward and national team captain. For years, Shomurodov has been the most recognisable Uzbek footballer abroad, building a career across Russia, Italy and Turkey. His path took him from Bunyodkor and Rostov to Genoa, Roma, Spezia, Cagliari and Istanbul Basaksehir.

For Uzbekistan, Shomurodov is more than a striker. He is the player who made the idea of an Uzbek attacking star in major foreign leagues feel realistic. His role at the World Cup will not be limited to scoring. He will have to hold the ball under pressure, lead the line, draw fouls, bring teammates into play and provide a reference point when Uzbekistan are forced deep.

His presence also links the current team to an older dream: that Uzbek players could move beyond regional visibility and become recognised names in European football. In 2026, he will carry that story as captain.

Khusanov, from Lens to Manchester City

For French readers, Abdukodir Khusanov is perhaps the most familiar name in the squad. Now a Manchester City defender, Khusanov first became known to many European observers during his spell at RC Lens. In northern France, he impressed with his physical power, anticipation and maturity in duels. His move to Manchester City then changed the scale of his profile.

Khusanov matters because he changes the perception of Uzbek football. He is not simply a promising player from an emerging football country. He is a defender associated with one of the most demanding club environments in the world. At the World Cup, his performances will be watched closely, especially against elite attackers.

Also read on Novastan: Football, URSS et Ouzbékistan : la demi-gloire du Dinamo Samarcande (3/5)

For Cannavaro, Khusanov is likely to be central to the defensive structure. Uzbekistan’s ability to remain competitive against Colombia and Portugal may depend on how well he organizes the back line, absorbs pressure and handles moments when the team is forced to defend close to its own box.

Fayzullaev and the wider generation

Uzbekistan are not a team built around only Shomurodov and Khusanov. Abbosbek Fayzullaev, Shomurodov’s teammate at Istanbul Başakşehir, brings creativity, movement and technical intelligence between midfield and attack. If Uzbekistan are to threaten stronger opponents, Fayzullaev may be the player capable of turning defensive recoveries into dangerous transitions.

Jaloliddin Masharipov, the Esteghlal midfielder, adds seniority and flair. Oston Urunov, the Persepolis midfielder, brings directness and physical presence. Igor Sergeev, the Persepolis forward, gives Cannavaro another experienced attacking option, particularly useful if Uzbekistan need to compete aerially or hold the ball higher up the pitch.

Also read on Novastan: Football, URSS et Ouzbékistan : une histoire délicate (1/5)

In midfield, Otabek Shukurov, who plays for Baniyas in the United Arab Emirates, and Odiljon Hamrobekov, who plays for Tractor in Iran, provide balance and defensive discipline. Against teams such as Portugal and Colombia, these players may be as important as the more visible attacking names. Uzbekistan’s best chance will come from keeping games narrow for as long as possible.

The squad also remains connected to the domestic game. Utkir Yusupov, the Navbahor goalkeeper, and Abduvohid Nematov, the Nasaf goalkeeper, represent two important clubs in Uzbek football. Botirali Ergashev, the Neftchi goalkeeper, also reflects the continued role of the Fergana Valley in the country’s football geography. The defensive line includes players from Pakhtakor, Nasaf, Neftchi, Surkhon, Dinamo Samarkand and AGMK. This is not only a team of expatriates. It is still rooted in the domestic league.

The clubs behind the national team

Uzbekistan’s World Cup qualification should not be seen as an isolated miracle. It rests on a club tradition that has been regionally significant for decades.

Pakhtakor Tashkent remains the historic institution of Uzbek football. During the Soviet period, it was the flagship club of the Uzbek SSR and the only Central Asian club to reach a Soviet Cup final. After independence, Pakhtakor became a regular presence in Asian competitions and reached the AFC Champions League semi-finals in 2003 and 2004. Its legacy matters because it connects the current national team to both Soviet football history and post-independence Uzbek sporting identity.

Also read on Novastan: Football, URSS et Ouzbékistan : la tragédie du Pakhtakor Tachkent (2/5)

Nasaf Qarshi offers a different model. Based outside the capital, Nasaf has become one of the most important clubs in the country and one of the clearest examples of Uzbek continental success. Its greatest achievement came in 2011, when it won the AFC Cup by beating Al-Kuwait 2-1 in the final in Qarshi. It remains one of the most important international trophies won by an Uzbek club.

Bunyodkor Tashkent represents the more ambitious, investment-heavy phase of Uzbek club football. In the late 2000s and early 2010s, the club attracted international attention, including through links with major foreign names, and reached the AFC Champions League semi-finals in 2008 and 2012. Its rise showed that Uzbek clubs could briefly compete with some of Asia’s strongest sides, even if they did not manage to win the continent’s top club tournament.

Navbahor Namangan and Neftchi Fergana show that Uzbek football is not only a Tashkent story. The Fergana Valley has long been one of the country’s most passionate football regions. Dinamo Samarkand, Bukhara, Surkhon and AGMK add further regional depth. The national team therefore reflects a wider football map: Tashkent, Qarshi, Namangan, Fergana, Samarkand, Bukhara and the south.

Recent friendlies: warning signs and encouragement

Uzbekistan’s final preparation produced mixed signals. On 1 June 2026, they lost 2-0 to Canada in Edmonton, with Jonathan Osorio and Jayden Nelson scoring for the hosts. The result exposed some of the difficulties Uzbekistan may face against athletic, direct opponents who can increase pressure in the second half.

The next friendly, however, was more encouraging. On 8 June, Uzbekistan lost 2-1 to the Netherlands behind closed doors at Icahn Stadium in New York. The Dutch won through two Cody Gakpo penalties, including one with the final kick of the game, after Igor Sergeev, the Persepolis forward, had equalised in stoppage time. Reuters described the Dutch win as unconvincing.

Also read on Novastan: Discussions sur le développement du football féminin au Kazakhstan

For Cannavaro, that match was useful. Uzbekistan showed they could remain competitive against a major European side, stay in the game until the final minutes and punish a lapse late on. The lesson was not that Uzbekistan are ready to dominate stronger teams. It was that they can frustrate them.

A Soviet football shadow

Uzbekistan has never previously appeared at a World Cup as an independent country. But Uzbek football was not absent from the Soviet football map. Pakhtakor Tashkent was the most visible club of the Uzbek SSR, and players from Tashkent and Uzbek football entered the wider Soviet system.

One example is Yuri Pshenichnikov, a Tashkent-born goalkeeper associated with Pakhtakor who represented the Soviet Union. His career does not make Uzbekistan a World Cup nation retroactively, but it helps explain why the country’s football history did not begin in 1991. The difference in 2026 is political and symbolic: Uzbekistan is no longer visible through a Soviet frame. It arrives with its own flag, anthem, supporters, clubs, players abroad and diaspora.

A World Cup in front of the diaspora

The fact that the 2026 World Cup is being held in North America gives Uzbekistan’s debut an additional layer. The team will not only be watched from Tashkent, Namangan, Samarkand, Qarshi or Fergana. It will also be followed in neighbourhoods where Uzbek, Bukharan Jewish, Central Asian and wider post-Soviet communities have become part of the urban landscape.

The clearest example is New York. In Queens, Rego Park and Forest Hills are strongly associated with the Bukharan Jewish community, many of whom trace their origins to Uzbekistan, especially Bukhara and Samarkand. The area is sometimes informally described as “Little Bukhara”, with synagogues, restaurants, bakeries and community institutions reflecting a Central Asian Jewish presence.

In Brooklyn, Uzbek and broader Central Asian visibility is especially noticeable around Brighton Beach, Coney Island, Sheepshead Bay and Bensonhurst. Restaurants, supermarkets and cafés serving plov, samsa, manty, shashlik and non have made food one of the most visible markers of the community. Northern New Jersey, connected to the wider New York metropolitan region, also forms part of this community geography.

Also read on Novastan: Les Pakhtakors de Tachkent, troisième équipe de football en Asie

The Uzbek presence in the United States is not limited to New York. Philadelphia and parts of Pennsylvania are often mentioned among important Uzbek-American centres. Smaller but active communities can also be found around Chicago, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Houston, San Antonio and Los Angeles. These communities are more dispersed than in New York, but they contribute to a wider map of Uzbek life in North America.

In Canada, Toronto and the wider Greater Toronto Area are the main reference points. Unlike New York, Toronto does not have a single neighbourhood as clearly associated with Uzbek life. The community is more spread across the metropolitan area, but cultural associations, student networks and community events make the city an important place to watch Uzbekistan’s World Cup debut.

For many Uzbeks abroad, the tournament may therefore become more than a sporting event. It could be a rare public moment of collective recognition, bringing together recent migrants, long-established families, Bukharan Jews, students, workers and entrepreneurs around a national team playing on their continent.

More than a debut

Uzbekistan are unlikely to be judged by the standards applied to Portugal or Colombia. They are not expected to control matches, dominate possession or overwhelm opponents. Their success will depend on narrower margins: staying compact, resisting pressure, using Shomurodov intelligently, releasing Fayzullaev at the right moments and relying on Khusanov to keep the defence organised.

But even if Uzbekistan do not reach the knockout stage, their presence already changes the geography of the tournament. For the first time, the World Cup includes an independent Uzbek team. For the first time, millions of Uzbek supporters can watch their own flag on football’s biggest stage. For the first time, Central Asia’s most populous country enters the global football imagination not through potential, but through participation.

If the White Wolves manage to take points, or even to make the match against DR Congo decisive, the meaning will be greater still. The 2026 World Cup could become the moment when Uzbek football stops being a regional story and becomes part of the global game.

Mathieu Lemoine, Editor-in-Chief for Novastan-English

The post Uzbekistan at the World Cup: The White Wolves Enter the Global Stage appeared first on Novastan English.

From Almaty to Moscow and Paris, filmmaker and editor Rinat Bekchintaev has built a creative identity shaped by movement, memory and displacement. In this interview with Novastan, he discusses Almaty’s cinematic power, his relationship with Kazakhstan, his work on films such as Salarié oriental, Crypto Rush and JOQTAU, and the independent cinema community he is helping to build in France.

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From Almaty to Paris

Novastan : You studied in Almaty and then continued your studies at the Moscow School of New Cinema. What did Almaty give you as a filmmaker, visually, emotionally or intellectually?

Rinat Bekchintaev: Listen, Almaty is simply an unbelievably cool place. I can talk for hours about how cinematic this city is. It has its own distinctive, authentic vibe, its own tone. There is a kind of noir quality on foggy days, and the mountains, of course, create this “wall of the horizon”. But the most important thing is the people, they are very open and responsive. I am still in touch with my friends from Almaty, and I collaborate with people connected to cinema and the visual arts.

Read also on Novastan: Que sont devenues les premières salles de cinéma du Kazakhstan-Oriental ?

And of course, I dream of making not just one film in Kazakhstan, and in Almaty in particular. For example, I am currently at the development stage of a film called I Want to Be a Geologist Like My Father, a film about how ecological trauma becomes part of collective memory and continues to exist in people and landscapes decades after the disaster itself.

I studied engineering at Almaty University of Power Engineering and Telecommunications (AUPET) for five years, then took screenwriting courses at the Open Literary School. At the time, it did not seem important to me, as is usually the case. But after several years, I realized that it had given me a very important impulse to take up cinema.

Your biography is linked to several geographies: Sevastopol, Almaty, Moscow, Paris. How do these places coexist in your creative identity?

Yes, I have quite a complex, nomadic path. Sevastopol and Crimea are the most difficult starting point for me, and I think I still have to reflect on this original point of my journey. I don’t know, my mother took me away from there to Almaty when I was very young. I spent my entire conscious life in Almaty, and perhaps the only thing I can identify myself as now is an Almaty person, strange as that may sound.

Moscow also gave me a lot that was very important. It was part of my formation, an education at the Moscow School of New Cinema that mattered a lot to me, and people with whom I am still in contact.

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I have not been in Paris for very long, and it is probably difficult to speak about it yet, but again, it is another chapter: new people, a new language, everything new. But I try to continue creating interaction with reality, with people and institutions. We created an association of independent filmmakers, K1NO1 (Kino 11), wrote a manifesto, organize screenings and discussions in Paris, and run a Telegram channel. Anyone can join the community, participate in events and so on. There is a website, Instagram and Telegram. In general, we are creating a kind of community, and it is international, not only made up of immigrants. I think this is important. I don’t know, at first glance it all looks like chaos, but I think it all mixes quite well in my ghostly creative identity.

Do you consider yourself a Central Asian filmmaker, a post-Soviet filmmaker, a filmmaker in exile, or do such definitions seem too limiting to you?

Perhaps for a career it is useful to manifest oneself in some way along these lines, but I do not think I would really manage to do that. I think all these labels coexist within me.

Has your perception of Kazakhstan, Central Asia or the post-Soviet space changed since moving to France?

Before moving to France, I came to Kazakhstan. I had not been in my native Almaty for about five years. And I was absolutely delighted. It seemed to me that everything was developing very well. Again, forgive me for being so complimentary, but I truly think that Kazakhstan is not stagnating at all, in any respect, and in the field of art, definitely not. After moving to France, I think it was only here that I began seriously considering the possibility of making a feature film in Kazakhstan. Perhaps the outside view is very important for me.

Note from Novastan: Bekchintaev’s work moves between directing and editing, fiction and documentary, personal stories and broader social questions. His filmography includes Salarié oriental (Vostochny rabochy), a short fiction film shaped by migration, labour and emotional distance; editing work on Crypto Rush, a documentary on the rise of cryptocurrency; and collaborations on Kazakhstani films such as Aruan Anartay’s JOQTAU and Dreams of the Sky Mausoleum.

Your films and artistic universe

One of your early fiction films, Salarié oriental (Vostochny rabochy), follows a story of emotional distance shaped by class, language and migration. Even its title seems to raise questions of labour, identity and perhaps irony. What story did you want to tell in this film?

The story in this film is simple: the impossibility of love because of class, language and other differences. But that is my interpretation now, ten years after the premiere. Perhaps at the time it was different. And of course, I believe that everyone should identify something for themselves in it. That, it seems to me, is the power of cinema.

I am also very glad that this film was once shown in Almaty, at the Arman cinema, the first cinema I ever visited in my life.

How did the idea for Salarié oriental come about, and what does this title mean to you?

The idea for the film came to my co-author Egor Shevchenko in a dream. After that, we developed it very seriously, and a lot came from reflecting on my perception of Moscow, as I had only just arrived there to study at the time.

The title appeared by chance. The sound designer named the folder with the files that way, we noticed it and immediately fixed it for ourselves. Before that, I do not even remember what the working title was.

You also worked as an editor on Crypto Rush, a documentary exploring the world of cryptocurrency across several countries and protagonists. What attracted you to this topic, and what did editing a film about such an abstract and global phenomenon teach you?

I was the editor on this film. It was a very important experience. We worked very closely with the director. At the time, she was very deeply immersed in the subject, and she had a very global project: several countries, protagonists and so on. In general, the most important thing was that we managed to combine a cinematic image and an informational one in this film. And I also learned a little more about crypto and so on.

Among your editing works is a movie connected to Kazakhstan, Aruan Anartay’s JOQTAU, rooted in Kazakhstani stories, landscapes and visual imagination. What attracts you to films shaped by this geography and cinematic world?

I think Kazakhstan has that authentic cinematic image that has enormous potential. This image consists of many elements, and it cannot be repeated anywhere else in the world.

JOQTAU is a film by my friend Aruan Anartay, and it is one of those examples where this image was captured. We searched for solutions for this film for a long time, and in the end, during editing, we found certain approaches that helped us bring this image out.

Directing, editing and cinematic language

You are both a director and an editor. Does working with editing make you a more disciplined director?

Yes, absolutely. As a director, I understand the editing process and try to make it less costly. In general, I believe that a contemporary director should be able to edit, shoot and work with sound themselves too.

Editing often remains invisible to the viewer, but it largely shapes the emotion and meaning of a film. In your view, what makes editing good?

It is not only about comfortable cuts, but about building the structure of the film, as well as creating refrains and syntagms. This happens almost entirely at the editing table. Not to mention rhythm and the flow of time. Sometimes a film comes together during editing, and this is not only my opinion.

Also read on Novastan: Le cinéma kazakh à l’honneur : retour sur la sixième édition du Festival du film kazakh à Paris

When you direct, do you already “edit” the film in your head during shooting, or do you try to leave space for discovery at the editing stage?

Yes, I do actually already edit in my head, and this gives me the opportunity to do fewer identical takes and shoot more variations of a scene. I felt this when I was shooting my film Gobelin, one of my own fiction projects.

What usually comes to you first: an image, a character, a place or a conflict?

Some kind of phenomenon or life situation appears first, or some place, or a figure, I don’t know, something that creates a sustained interest in exploring it. That is the starting point for a film.

What faces, landscapes, pauses or gestures attract your camera?

Those that transmit either vitality or a hauntological feeling.

Paris, emigration and artistic transformation

What are the main difficulties faced by a filmmaker who arrives in Paris without previous professional connections, a familiar linguistic environment or the usual film-production system?

Yes, there are many problems. First of all, not being embedded in the environment, the lack of connections, and the language too. That is probably the most difficult part, but I am trying to move in that direction. There is no shortage of ideas, and the film-production system is more or less clear.

Does emigration provide artistic freedom, or does it primarily create practical constraints?

Both. An outside view always gives a new lens on reality. Also, the reality around me is new to me, so one way or another I find interest in it. As for practical constraints, they always exist, and emigration intensifies them. It is difficult, but in my view not fatal.

Kazakhstan and Central Asian cinema

Which Kazakhstani or Central Asian filmmakers should French-speaking audiences know more about?

Aruan Anartay, a Kazakhstani director, screenwriter and producer whose debut feature JOQTAU brought a poetic, documentary-inflected vision of the Kazakh steppe to international festivals; and Katerina Suvorova, an Almaty-born documentary filmmaker known for Sea Tomorrow, which premiered at Locarno’s Critics’ Week, and for her work on Mediastan.

Which of your films would you advise Novastan readers to start with, and why?

They can watch Vostochny rabochy / Salarié oriental here.

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Interview by

Mathieu Lemoine, Editor-in-Chief at Novastan-English

Maya Ivanova, Contributor at Novastan

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The post Rinat Bekchintaev: “Almaty has an authentic cinematic image that cannot be repeated anywhere else” appeared first on Novastan English.

Kyrgyz director Tolomush Zhanybekov turns his camera toward the people and places often left outside the frame: cemetery guards, pensioners selling their belongings, children facing humiliation, brothers bound by care and solitude. Born in Balykchy and based in Kyrgyzstan’s contemporary film scene, he builds a cinema rooted in roads, bazaars, industrial landscapes and social margins.

His films The Road, Birdsong, Balyk and Barakholka reveal a Kyrgyzstan far from the usual images of mountains and nomadic traditions. Through silence, fragile encounters and carefully chosen locations, Tolomush Zhanybekov explores loneliness, vulnerability and the quiet dignity of people living on the edges of public attention.

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In an interview with Novastan, the young filmmaker discusses his childhood, his relationship with cinema, the places that shape his work, the ethics of filming vulnerable people and the emergence of a new generation of Kyrgyz directors seeking to show an authentic, unvarnished Central Asia.

Novastan : Could you tell us about your journey into cinema? When did you first feel that you wanted to become a director?

Tolomush Zhanybekov : Since childhood, my main friend was the television. I hardly ever left the house: I watched all kinds of films and, figuratively speaking, spoke with the screen. Stories for my own films were constantly being born and developing in my head. Most likely, the desire to become a director came from that childhood solitude.

You were born in Balykchy, and several of your films seem very closely connected to specific places. Could you tell us where The Road, Birdsong, Balyk and Barakholka were shot, and why you chose those particular locations?

My graduation film, The Road, was shot in the city of Balykchy, where I was born and grew up. It is a very textured, visually rich place. Birdsong was shot in the village of Kaji-Say, in the Issyk-Kul region. In Soviet times, it was a thriving industrial town where coal was mined, and there was a uranium tailings site nearby. Today, there is a persistent feeling that time froze there somewhere in the 1990s. Balyk and Barakholka were shot in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan.

For readers discovering your work for the first time, could you briefly present each of these films in two or three sentences: what is it about, where does it take place and what drew you to this story?

The Road: The story of a 65-year-old cemetery guard. He lives and works far from the noise of the world, and in this silence, alone with those who have passed away, he paradoxically feels much more comfortable than among the living.

Birdsong: A documentary about two brothers. The elder brother finds it difficult to go outside, and the only person who looks after him is his younger brother, who goes to the village centre every day in search of casual work. Their meeting at the end of the day is the most important thing in their lives. Since childhood, I had been interested in what it means to have a brother, how such relationships work, how brothers support one another and what they talk about. One day, in a small village, I met these protagonists and understood that I had to make a film about them.

Barakholka: A documentary about pensioners. Every weekend, near my home, they set up a street market where they sell their old, vintage belongings. I have always been fascinated by watching them, their daily lives and the past they are selling off.

Balyk: A short fiction film about a teenager who stutters heavily, which makes it difficult for him to communicate with others. It is partly a personal story, as I faced this problem myself.

For readers who do not know Kyrgyzstan well, how would you describe places such as Balykchy, Bishkek, Barakholka or Kaji-Say, geographically, socially and personally?

Balykchy is the city of my childhood, in northern Kyrgyzstan, surrounded by picturesque but harsh landscapes. A place of winds and memories.

Bishkek is the city where I grew up. It is a noisy capital, where people from all regions come in search of a better life, creating a bubbling social melting pot.

Read also on Novastan: Kirghizstan : les déchets radioactifs continuent de polluer les eaux de Kadji Saï

Kaji-Say is an abandoned industrial trace of a bygone era, squeezed between the mountains and Lake Issyk-Kul, where history itself seems to have come to a standstill.

Barakholka is not just a market, but a living open-air social archive, where people’s destinies are revealed through old objects.

How important is location to you in the process of making a film? Do you first find a place and build a story around it, or does a character appear first, after which you look for the right space?

In my work, location is a fully-fledged character. It conveys the atmosphere of the film in its own right. Sometimes I see a textured place, and a plot immediately begins to take shape within it. And sometimes I work the other way around: first the image of a character is born, and then I look for a space that could organically receive that character or emphasise their inner state.

Your films often focus on people who usually remain outside public attention: children, pensioners, solitary figures, people living or working in difficult social conditions. Why are you drawn to these kinds of protagonists?

In contemporary Kyrgyz cinema, these layers of the population are undeservedly neglected. They are rarely shown on screen. Mentally, all my characters are united by a deep inner loneliness, and it is precisely this vulnerability, this invisibility to the wider world, that attracts and moves me most.

In The Road, the road seems to be something more than just a physical space. What does it mean to you?

You are right. During my student years, I first came face to face with death: every autumn during my four years of study, someone in my family died. This tragic cycle forced me to think constantly about death and even, subconsciously, to wait for it. It may sound naive now, but at the time I desperately wanted to make sense of and understand a person’s departure. From these experiences came the metaphor of the road as a path between worlds, a transit from life into non-being.

Silence and atmosphere also play a very strong role in The Road. Is silence important in your cinema?

Yes, absolutely. To return to the previous question: to make sense of such fundamental things as life and death, silence was vitally necessary for me. In addition, as a director, I feel very close to a pure visual language. I like it when thoughts, feelings and dramaturgy can be conveyed to the viewer without unnecessary words, through pauses and the atmosphere of the frame.

Birdsong was your first documentary film. What pushed you towards documentary cinema?

By nature, I am a contemplative person. Since childhood, I could sit for hours and openly observe people, although now, of course, I do it more carefully and tactfully. Documentary is the foundation of cinema. It always contains genuine organic life, living human faces and real stories that cannot be artificially constructed within the framework of a fiction script.

How did you meet the protagonists of Birdsong, and how did you manage to build trust with them?

I was walking through the centre of the village and sat down at a bus stop, observing the local residents. From a distance, a man wearing a kalpak approached me. We began talking. From what he told me, I understood that he lived with his elder brother, was constantly looking for any kind of casual work and spoke about him all the time, with immense tenderness and anxiety. I suggested that he appear in a film, he agreed, and I immersed myself in their fragile, closed world.

Read also on Novastan: Vie et mœurs des déchets uraniques centrasiatiques

The trust between us probably emerged on the level of pure energy. My original intention was to make this film with great love and respect for them. I think the viewer feels that warmth through the screen and through the way the camera angles were chosen.

When you film real people, especially vulnerable people, how do you decide what can be shown and what should remain off camera?

It is always an extremely difficult inner dilemma. In documentary cinema, you very quickly become close to your protagonists. They become dear to you, and subconsciously there is a strong desire to protect them, to defend them, to show them from their best side.

During filming, I gather a lot of material. At the editing stage, when the final story is being built, I always mentally put myself in their place: how would I feel if this personal information became public? Here it is critically important to sense the fine line between artistic truth and ethics, to understand what needs to remain for the dramaturgy and what must be hidden from the viewer’s eyes forever.

In Balyk, the main character is a boy who lives between school, work at the market, loneliness and humiliation. Where did this story begin?

The word Balykchy means “fisherman” in Kyrgyz. In childhood, our family lived by cooking and selling fish. In addition, during my school years, I stuttered very badly. I remember that in the lower grades we had speed-reading tests: we had to read as many words as possible in one minute. In second grade, my classmates read between 40 and 65 words, while because of my stutter I managed only nine.

It was an enormous stress and trauma. At home, alone, I could read completely normally. I would memorise texts in advance, but as soon as I stood in front of the class, everything collapsed. The plot of Balyk grew out of these painful personal memories.

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What does the title Balyk mean to you? Is the fish a symbol in the film?

Yes, the fish is a key symbol here. When you cut or kill a fish, it does not make a single sound. Its “facial” expression does not change; you cannot read pain or emotion in it. My main character is locked in the same way in his muteness and loneliness in the face of a cruel outside world. He suffers silently, like a fish.

The market in Balyk is not only a workplace, but an entire social world. What did you want to show through this environment?

I wanted to capture our authentic bazaar. It is a unique space, always incredibly interesting to be in and to observe: all kinds of types, destinies, tragedies and comedies collide there. Moreover, the East is historically and culturally tied to bazaar culture. It is its heart and the mirror of society.

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Balyk is a Kyrgyz-French co-production. How did this international collaboration come about, and did it influence the development of the film or its reception?

In 2024, a Script Lab for authors from Central Asia was organised in Kazakhstan as part of the Post Space film camp. My mentor was Katya Khazak, a producer from France. At that time, I already had a rough cut of Balyk. I showed her the material, she liked the film very much and offered to help complete it at a high international post-production level.

Our project was supported by the European fund Creative Europe MEDIA. Thanks to this collaboration, we shortened and significantly improved the editing, and carried out professional sound correction and colour correction. This greatly raised the artistic level of the film.

Could you explain the title Kesilish joldogu pensionerlerdin maekterinen (Barakholka)? How would you translate it into English or French?

In English, the title translates as: Conversations of Pensioners at a Crossroads. The title contains a double meaning: the physical crossroads of the streets where they stand, and the crossroads of life at which they find themselves in the twilight of their days.

Why did you decide to film pensioners at Barakholka? What did you want to convey through their conversations?

I wanted to reveal their deep social loneliness, but at the same time to show their desperate, touching attempt to remain part of society, to be among people. Through their everyday conversations, sometimes sad, sometimes paradoxical, an astonishingly sincere and unembellished life emerges.

The outside view of Kyrgyzstan often focuses on mountains, nomadic traditions and impressive landscapes. Your films, by contrast, turn more towards everyday life, urban or semi-urban spaces, roads, markets and social margins. Is this a conscious choice?

Yes, it is an entirely conscious artistic choice. Our country is incredibly full of contrasts. Of course, we have majestic mountains and postcard landscapes, but there is another side of reality too: the everyday life of ordinary people, urban outskirts, the underside of society. This underside is still very little explored and rarely conveyed in cinema, and it is precisely this that I want to reveal to the viewer.

How would you describe the current generation of young Kyrgyz directors?

We are a generation of sincere and, in a good sense, naive directors. There is an enormous, pure desire burning in us to make films despite any difficulties and to rediscover for the world an authentic, non-ceremonial Central Asia.

Also read on Novastan: « Kourmanjan Datka » : l’épopée féminine, nationaliste et historique de la reine de l’Alaï

What are the main difficulties independent filmmakers face in Kyrgyzstan today: funding, distribution, education, censorship, access to audiences?

I would say that the main problems are specialised education and an acute lack of infrastructure for film production. Making films in co-production with other countries is especially difficult. We still lack the legal and technical foundations for easy international partnerships.

Do you feel part of a broader Central Asian cinema, or do you primarily see your work in the context of the Kyrgyz film scene?

I think I feel more like part of a broader regional, Central Asian cinema. Our countries have very similar historical backgrounds, common social problems and a mentality that is close in spirit, so we understand each other’s pains and joys very well.

What would you like international audiences to better understand about Kyrgyzstan through your films?

I do not have any specific educational or didactic goal. My task as a director is simpler and, at the same time, more difficult: to tell human stories honestly. If, through these local stories, foreign viewers can empathise with the characters, then the universal language of cinema has worked.

For Novastan readers who would like to discover your work: where can they watch your films? Are The Road, Birdsong, Balyk and Barakholka available online, shown only at festivals, or can they be watched on request?

Unfortunately, the films are not freely available online for now. They are currently in an active period of their life, so legally they can mainly be seen at film festivals.

Are there any upcoming screenings or festivals where viewers in Kyrgyzstan, France, Europe or online will be able to see your work?

No screenings are planned for the very coming months. The main wave of screenings and festival premieres is expected closer to autumn, when the new global film season traditionally begins.

Also read on Novastan: « Centaure » : film poétique et critique sur la société kirghize

If readers discover your work through this interview, which film would you advise them to start with, and why?

I would recommend watching them in strict chronological order, starting with the 2022 work. That way, viewers will be able to see not only the stories of the characters, but also my personal evolution as an author, the development of my directorial language and my cinematic thinking as a whole.

What are you working on now, and would you like to make a feature film in the future?

Right now, I am working on my next short film. At the same time, I am taking a big step forward: I am writing the screenplay for my debut feature film.

Interview by

Mathieu Lemoine, Editor-in-Chief at Novastan-English

Maya Ivanova, Contributor at Novastan

Thank you for reading this article! If you have time, we would appreciate your feedback, either through this anonymous form or by email at editorial@novastan.org. Thank you very much!

The post Through roads, markets and silence: Tolomush Zhanybekov films Kyrgyzstan’s unseen lives appeared first on Novastan English.

Last April, Kyrgyzstan’s special forces carried out heavy-handed raids on two of Bishkek’s most popular electronic-music bars. Expecting a hotspot of drugs and illicit activity, officers found instead a young, diverse nightlife community carving out one of Bishkek’s few remaining safe spaces for self-expression. After a year marked by escalated repression and shrinking civil liberties in Central Asia’s “island of democracy,” Novastan sits down with two leading figures from the targeted venues to discuss how their communities endure as Kyrgyzstan slides deeper into authoritarianism.

Kyrgyzstan has long been seen beyond Central Asia as a rare abode of democratic values in a region dominated by post-Soviet authoritarianism. When Sadyr Japarov, the country’s current president, suddenly rose to power in the wake of the 2020 Kyrgyz Revolution, he swore to the nation from day one to protect the Kyrgyz people’s cherished liberty. Four years later, the president himself has emerged as the largest threat to Kyrgyzstan’s already fragile democracy.

Japarov’s governance in just the first two years of his rule landed Kyrgyzstan on the 2022 Freedom House Index’s list of “consolidated authoritarian regimes.” In 2024, Kyrgyzstan earned a position on the CIVICUS Monitor’s “watchlist of countries experiencing a rapid decline in civic freedoms.” At the heart of Japarov’s consolidation of power lies the systematic erosion of Kyrgyzstan’s already flimsy freedom of expression. Japarov has frequently deployed his power over state institutions to stifle dissent in both political and civic spheres. An unlikely casualty of the crackdown has been Bishkek’s emerging techno scene.

Japarov’s Techno Raids

On the night of 14 April 2024, Kyrgyzstan’s special forces, working alongside local police, raided Ailan Bar to conduct a search for illegal substance use at electronic music gatherings. In addition to heavy firearms and drugs tests, the police brought along a professional camera crew to document the raid for their social media page. The following night, another raid was done at PLUR, another of Bishkek’s techno institutions, in a similar fashion. Both bars are central to Bishkek’s electronic music scene and known throughout the city for providing above all else a “safe space” for all partygoers, regardless of background. 

In both instances, officers drew their weapons and forced the men present to lie on the floor with their hands behind their backs while they searched the venues. According to RFE/RL, police assaulted several people at Ailan Bar, striking one in the leg and another in the stomach.

In both raids, police were noted to be genuinely surprised with the minimal amount of illicit substances they were able to sniff out. At Ailan Bar, officers opened the raid with a lecture on “irresponsible drug use,” a message that fell flat when only three of the dozens present tested positive for cannabis use. The police statement regarding that night notes they were only able to find “a ready-made cigarette with narcotics” and a packet of a legal anti-epilepsy medication.

The lack of significant narcotics did not surprise Chyngyz, one of Ailan Bar’s directors and part-owners. “Our community is quite healthy in that sense,” he asserted. Chyngyz explained that like himself, the vast majority of those who enjoy techno music in Bishkek do not use illegal substances at their parties. “I think if people truly love electronic music, they don’t need drugs.”

Read More on Novastan: Inside Bishkek’s Metal Boom: Portrait of a Music Pioneer in Kyrgyzstan

Unlike most patrons to Bishkek’s techno venues, some of the police involved with the raid were later revealed to be engaging in illegal activities themselves. “In the fall, I read in the news that one of the investigators present at the raid got charged with corruption,” Chyngyz stated.

New Wave of Kyrgyz Populism Threatens Self-Expression

For both partygoers and staff, the raids were an unprecedented shock. Up to that point, both bars had been cooperative with local police and had never faced any prior incidents. Both the heavy-handed police tactics and the state’s post-raid messaging indicated that the operations were directed from the highest levels of government.

The raids aligned neatly with Japarov’s emerging populist agenda to enforce traditional Kyrgyz values. “In the government’s eyes, young people must study and start a family. There’s no room for alcohol and dancing,” Chyngyz states. 

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In addition to sensationalizing illegal drug usage in electronic music spaces, authorities have begun to frame Bishkek’s techno community as a conduit for LGBTQ+ influence, portraying it as a danger to Kyrgyz youth due to the bars’ inclusive policies. LGBTQ+ youth in Kyrgyzstan already face severe state and social repression, and to many, Bishkek’s electronic music parties are the only spaces where they are fully allowed to be their truest selves. This, to those running Bishkek’s techno institutions, is a red line they will not back down from. “Keeping our environment safe for all is our main responsibility,” Chyngyz states firmly.

Repression Necessitates Adaptation

After the raid, PLUR bar began adjusting its strategies to deal with the new wave of state repression. Constrained by resources and now under the state’s watchful eye, the bar’s operators refused to surrender to their opposition. “We hadn’t done a lot yet. We still hadn’t shown everybody what we really want to create,” says Innokentii, PLUR’s creative director. “No one has told us no yet.” 

Ailan Bar, too, remained committed to their vision to provide safety and a safe space for their community in the months following the raid. However, their brazen commitment to provide for and defend the LGBTQ+ community had to transition to more covert operations if it were to continue in the new repressive climate. Prior to the raids, Chyngyz used to host regular “queer nights” at Ailan Bar. He is firmly committed to continuing these events, but recognizes that Ailan Bar’s public advertising must now be more strategic. “It is all about being discreet. Queer people must know that they are welcome here, but also the wrong people must not know that queer people are welcome.”

Read More on Novastan: Queer life under pressure in Kyrgyzstan

Since the raid, Ailan Bar has closed its physical location and transitioned to a model where the organization pops up for one-time events across Kyrgyzstan. The bar’s organizers note that they feel safer in Kyrgyzstan’s more remote regions away from the state’s watch. 

PLUR has since taken on a new identity as QQ Bar and moved into a smaller space closer to the city center. Innokentii sees the move as an opportunity to learn from their past mistakes. “I want to make it stable enough to continue without me if I leave the country. I’m not from here—I don’t want to die here,” he says. Innokentii, like a large part of Bishkek’s contemporary techno community, came to Kyrgyzstan from Russia in recent years to flee war drafts. Helping to create spaces for electronic music in Bishkek helps him feel close to the subculture in his home country, a subculture that remains his central inspiration.

In order to ensure their subculture survives, Chyngyz has founded a DJ school within Ailan Collective to train and teach the next generation of Bishkek’s rebellious electronic music scene.

The Future for Bishkek Ravers

While law enforcement targeting youth subcultures is nothing new for Kyrgyzstan, those involved with Bishkek’s techno scene note that the current wave of repression feels different than those that have preceded it. “With the previous government, it is not right to categorize what we had as ‘freedom.’ We had negligence. We could only exist freely because the government didn’t care about us,” Chyngyz notes. “Now, authorities no longer turn a blind eye–they have a blueprint and they follow it. They’re populists, and populists have to show results in order to keep the people happy.”

After the raids, both bars saw their regular number of attendees dwindle. However, since the bars have implemented new strategies to prevent police altercations, they have largely been successful in fending off further government attacks. In just over a year and a half since the April raids, the crowds have largely returned. QQ Bar, even in their smaller venue, now sees over two hundred attendees at their most popular events. 

The techno community in Bishkek is as diverse as it is tight-knit. Chyngyz notes that he always finds it hard to describe the demographics of his crowd to others, as it spreads across every age group, profession, and walk of life. Innokentii, however, notes that there is one thread that unites all of their party participants. “Unlike techno scenes in larger cities, in Bishkek, everyone who comes is a character.”

With the survival of Bishkek’s techno institutions, the venues now serve as a cultural meeting point for the city’s other repressed creative communities. Innokentii notes that it is not an uncommon sight at QQ Bar to see people from Bishkek’s art industry, bar industry, rock scene, and rap underground all mixing freely.

Bishkek’s electronic music vanguard now sees their scene’s creativity and resilience as more than a local story. They have created something unique that they want to share with the world. While domestic challenges persist, few in Bishkek’s techno leadership appear ready to back down. “If you’re scared, you do it scared. So we do it scared,” Chyngyz remarked.

Chyngyz believes that the techno scene’s ability to adapt to evermounting challenges and unite diverse communities is not only what has led to the scene’s survival in Bishkek, but truly illuminates what the community is all about. “Techno is something that has the power to unite completely different people with completely unrelated backgrounds–people who maybe can’t even speak the same language. But they love techno, and enjoy the space it provides. Out of nothing, you create common ground.”

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Joseph Fisher for Novastan

The post “If You’re Scared, You do it Scared”: How Bishkek’s Techno Scene Survives State Repression appeared first on Novastan English.

Berlin’s Sinema Transtopia hosted the first edition of Central Asia: At The Crossroads on September 27–28, 2025, a new short film festival spotlighting bold and diverse voices from Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and the Uyghur region of China. The two-day event offered a vivid glimpse into the region’s emerging cinema: from intimate personal stories to striking social portraits. In this article, we highlight some of the most memorable works featured in the programme.

On September 27 and 28, Berlin’s Sinema Transtopia hosted the launch of the Central Asia: At the Crossroads short film festival, held in parallel with a sister programme in Tashkent supported by the independent Tashkent Film School. Alongside a main selection showcasing works by filmmakers from Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and the Uyghur region of China, the festival also featured a workshop on decolonial and feminist approaches to film writing and curating, and a talk exploring the challenges of filmmaking and festival organisation.

The films were thematically curated into four independent sections – Radical Hopefulness, Tender is the Youth, Kinds of Remembrance, and Yurt – bu? Homeland – is? Yet across all screening blocks, several overarching themes emerges, ranging from the routines of everyday life, questions of youth and identity, collective and personal memory, feminist and queer perspectives, to various other pressing social issues. This article will discuss several programme highlights.

Read more on Novastan: “JAÑA CEKARA” Film Festival Forced to Go Online due to Pressure from Law Enforcement

Mirtemir Is All Right

Daytime shots of a dilapidated hut in dusty Nukus gradually give way to evening scenes of a bustling street. In this way, directors Sasha Kulak and Michael Borodin juxtapose the two sides of young Mirtemir’s reality. In the morning, he is a caring older brother, watching over his sister, and a grandson tending to his blind grandmother; in the evening, he becomes a fast-food waiter and a street singer, entertaining passersby with the help of a mobile karaoke machine. Such early responsibility fell upon him after his mother left for a neighbouring country to earn a living.

Mirtemir himself dreams of doing the same: leaving for Almaty to work as a waiter. Though he has learned to balance work and pleasure – finding, for instance, a moment in the middle of the day to roller-skate with his younger sister – it becomes clear both to the viewer and, perhaps, to the boy himself: childhood is slipping away. Games and mischief are giving way to the care of loved ones and the pursuit of family well-being.

The documentary, almost reportorial in style, lends the story a particular authenticity and restrained emotional depth. And even if the viewer cannot be sure whether Mirtemir truly exists, one thing is beyond doubt: the film addresses a pressing social issue — that of children left without parental care in Uzbekistan, where adults are forced to migrate for work to provide for their families. Despite its youthful and at times ironic tone, attuned to both the protagonist’s age and the atmosphere of his surroundings, Мiртемiрде бэрi жаксы (Mirtemir Is All Right) raises profoundly serious themes of poverty, forced maturity, and the loss of childhood.

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Comrade policeman

If you have ever wondered how Kazakhstani news media actually operate, Assel Aushakimova’s short film will satisfy that curiosity completely in just thirteen minutes. The story of producing a pseudo-television report on the state program Жолда Қабылдау (“Reception on the road”) unfolds into a charming satire — not only of contemporary news broadcasting but also of the inner workings of law enforcement institutions.

The essence of the program itself becomes clear through the carefully selected takes of the so-called report: at specially designated roadside points, any citizen may approach police representatives with a question or concern. For illustrative purposes, the local journalist Nur (played by Dinara Aliyeva) chooses to film directly opposite one such station — a minivan faintly resembling a police van. Nearby, at a small table, a policeman responsible for the post leisurely cracks sunflower seeds. Yet a single shot of a lonely “reception point” proves insufficient — the program’s popularity among the public must be demonstrated. Thus, Aliyeva’s character resorts to a peculiar solution: she persuades a taxi driver to act as a citizen with a question.

The comic tension reaches its peak when both participants of the improvised “reception” begin speaking to the camera about their supposed experience — or rather, haltingly reading from a pre-written script of the state television channel.

Although the film was released four years ago, it has lost none of its relevance. The confusion over the capital’s name (Astana or Nur-Sultan?) still provokes a smile, while its ironic portrayal of state media operations continues to resonate sharply with viewers’ sense of recognition.

Read more on Novastan: New voices – Central Asian short films at the GoEast Festival 2024

Blue Gate

A poignant story by Kyrgyz director Narghiza Dotieva appeared in the thematic block Yurt – bu? Homeland – is?, dedicated to reflections on the notion of home. Unlike the other films in this section, which approached the idea of home through the prism of memory, cultural belonging, or even denied the concept of home as a constant and fixed place, Көк Дарбаза (Blue Gate) presents a different, more tangible image — that of a house hidden behind blue gates. Yet does the director confine herself to this single interpretation?

The protagonist – a solitary, reticent young man – is drawn, inexplicably and irresistibly, to those very blue gates. Or rather, to what lies beyond them: an old, humble house, a half-bare garden, and, beside it, on a timeworn bench, a blind old woman catching rays of sunlight. Unable to remain a timid observer, the young man repeatedly sneaks into the yard – pulling weeds here, mending the bench there, the old woman’s favorite resting spot. Though blind, she nevertheless senses his presence and something more: his loneliness. It seems she is the only one around him who has truly seen him — not his face, but his soul.

A tragic accident on the road separates the two, though only physically. The spiritual bond between them endures, like a thread entwining the branches of the trees stretching from the house toward the lake – the young man’s final, secret gesture of care left as a gift to the old woman.

Thus, Көк Дарбаза, in answering the question “What is home?”, transcends the boundaries of physical space. It is a story of spiritual closeness arising despite the absence of blood ties, despite circumstance and silence. A story of love, attachment, and acceptance, transforming the very notion of “home” into a metaphor for human connection and inner warmth.

For updates on future screenings or editions of the festival, follow the Central Asia: At The Crossroads Instagram-page.

All photos used in this article are published with the permission of the photographer, @fogg_films.

Written by Darya Loza

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The post Central Asia: At The Crossroads – highlights from Berlin’s new regional film festival appeared first on Novastan English.

In October and November, avant-garde music duo Vtoroi Ka will be touring Europe, from Istanbul to Reykjavík. This is the first tour of its kind for a popular music band from Kyrgyzstan, and represents another significant milestone in its burgeoning career. 

Like the rest of Central Asia, Kyrgyzstan is experiencing a pop music boom, partly thanks to its growing presence on international streaming platforms. However, local artists still lag behind those in neighbouring Kazakhstan, which has long established itself as a pop culture powerhouse, even winning a Grammy Award. Although Kyrgyzstani artists frequently perform concerts abroad, their audiences are usually limited to members of the Central Asian diaspora. 

The innovative Bishkek music duo Vtoroi Ka is now embarking on an ambitious tour to change that. From 17 October to 12 November, the band will perform in eleven different countries on sixteen dates, taking them from Istanbul to Reykjavík. This tour is unprecedented for a contemporary music band from Kyrgyzstan and represents a watershed moment for the local music scene. For Vtoroi Ka, however, it is the next logical step in their burgeoning career.

The organisers of the Iceland Airwaves festival in Reykjavík, at which Vtoroi Ka will perform on 7 November, share this opinion. In their presentation on the festival website, they express their strong conviction about their future career: ‘With the momentum building as it is, it won’t be long before Vtoroi Ka are the name at the tip of the tongue of your cooler best friend’s lips.’

Bakai Kolchaev, the band manager and director of Infinity Music, the leading music distributor in Bishkek, explains that the idea of a European tour had been in the air for some time, given the band’s growing international fan base. ‘We carefully examined the indicators in various countries in Europe and beyond – the figures showed that there is considerable interest,’ Bakai told Novastan. He added that the band is streamed particularly often in countries such as Germany, France, Poland and Spain.

Hip-hop in southern Bishkek 

Vtoroi Ka was founded in the mid-2010s by Sultan and Ilya in the Asanbay district in the south of Bishkek. The two school friends had met some ten years earlier – the band’s name refers to the designation of that class, ‘2K’. They started creating underground rap music with homemade beats in their home studio and releasing it on YouTube and local platforms, some of it accompanied by self-made music videos.

This led to the release of their debut EP, Iz Okna (‘From the Window’), in 2017. Eventually, they took it down from streaming services because they were no longer happy with the quality. However, the eponymous single, complete with music video, can still be found on YouTube, offering a glimpse into the group’s early work. 

The duo was already contemplating breaking up in early 2020 when they made their first local hit with the single Resnitsam stalo tyazhelo (‘My Eyelids Turned heavy’). Six months later, they released their first ‘official’ album, Den’ Zavisimosti (‘Dependence Day’). This musically rich hip-hop record introduces the band’s everyday life, their business, and their longings in their ‘hood’, the microdistrict of Asanbay.

As they gained immediate acclaim in the local hip-hop scene, Sultan and Ilya had already turned to writing completely different music. Their second album, Serial, released in 2022, still contains a few rap tracks, most notably the single 39 Shkola (‘39th School’), dedicated to a Bishkek school renowned for its performances in street battles at the time. However, with its portrayal of intense teenage life, the album already shows strong signs of musical eclecticism. Fans of 2000s pop rock will also find plenty to enjoy here.

Always on the move

In July 2022, the single Teni ot Palm (‘Palm Shadows’) marked the next breakthrough. With its memorable bass line, the track became a summer hit, gaining popularity far beyond Kyrgyzstan. To this day, it remains Vtoroi Ka’s most-listened-to song. The accompanying music video featured Sultan and Ilya in bizarrely old-fashioned gangster roles for the first time, a concept they continued to develop in subsequent years. For example, the track Vstrechayte Govnyukov (‘Welcome the shitheads’), released in early 2023, was accompanied by a retro-style music video, in which the two artists portray themselves as troublemakers who arrive in your city with a ‘whole squad’ and their ‘live live-band’.

Read more on Novastan: Sex, Drugs, and Postpunk – the new album of Bishkek’s Duo Vtoroi Ka

From then on, ‘always on the move’ became the motto for both Vtoroi Ka and for their artistic gangster characters. Sometimes they appear as elusive fugitives, as in the single Gde-to za granitsey (‘Somewhere Abroad’), sometimes as hustlers who are always on the lookout for the next big coup, as in Tonirovannyi Kaban (‘Tinted Benz’), in which the two set off with their business partner ‘Real Bayke’ (played by Bakai) to conquer Saint Petersburg. This also marked the beginning of the band’s travels, with parts of the videos being shot during their first concerts in Russia.

By that time, Vtoroi Ka had already been on the radar of Russia’s leading music critics for a while. In July 2022, the hip-hop magazine The Flow first reported on the two ‘newcomers’. Journalists such as Nikolaj Redkin and Danya ‘Pornorap’ publicly expressed their enthusiasm for the ‘incredibly stylish shitheads’ who produced the ‘best music videos of the past year [2023]’.

Post-punk and rave

Vtoroi Ka made their definitive breakthrough in the Russian-speaking world with the album Svinaya Poputka (literally a ‘Piggy Ride’), released in April 2024. With their post-punk-inspired yet consistently colourful and ironic tracks, the band clearly struck a chord. The album topped The Flow’s Top 50 ranking for that year and appeared in several other best-of lists.

However, that success did not stop the group from reinventing themselves time and again. They announced the end of their post-punk phase on social media when they released the album. Indeed, the GO PUBE EP, released in March 2025, shows them moving more towards electronic music. Their visual aesthetic has also evolved, away from the image of leather jacket-wearing gangsters. Instead, it revolves around a psychedelic, imaginative reinterpretation of everyday Kyrgyz motifs. 

Such elements can already be found in earlier music videos, such as Dura (‘Silly Girl’) and the video for Soundcheck, and their latest single, Minimum iz sta (‘Minimum out of a Hundred’). Reminiscent of the early noughties in both music and visuals, this latest piece also announces their upcoming album, Svobodnye Dvizheniya (‘Free Movements’).

Kyrgyz carnival 

These new directions are also accompanied by geographical expansion. Following a mini-tour of Russia in May 2025 and appearances at several festivals in China in August, Vtoroi Ka are now moving Westwards with their ‘whole squad’ and their ‘live live-band’.

With all these musical metamorphoses, even More Zvukov, the Berlin booking agency organising most of the tour, finds it difficult to assign the ‘innovative’ band to a genre. The promotional text states that they are ‘known for their unique blend of electronic, alternative, and indie sounds. Combining experimental beats with heartfelt lyrics, Vtoroi Ka creates music that transcends genres, resonating with listeners across diverse cultural landscapes.’

Nevertheless, there are some constants that have given the collective a clear identity over the years, whether their music features raw trap beats, melancholic basslines or powerful electro. Throughout their work, they present themselves and their surroundings in a lighthearted and self-ironic manner, without resorting to slapstick. Their combination of quirky motifs and artistic precision gives their work a very carnivalesque quality.

Nevertheless, their carnival is unmistakably Kyrgyz. These musical globetrotters have always maintained strong ties to their hometown of Bishkek. From the start, they have been ambitious to create a distinctive Bishkek sound. The Russian used in their lyrics is a Kyrgyzstani Russian, full of terms that prompted the journalist interviewing them for The Flow to ask several follow-up questions. The two are also eager representatives of Kyrgyzstan in their visual language, creating their own unique imagery full of playful details that stand out from tourist clichés. 

Art director Yuliya Petrova, who has been working with Vtoroi Ka since 2021, has certainly played a part in creating this visual world. She has also directed most of the band’s recent videos. The team around the musical all-rounders Sultan and Ilya, who write, record and mix their own music and lyrics, has also further grown.

Full venues and real energy

Their session musicians, who are featured in various live videos, such as this reinterpretation of their hit Teni ot Palm, include a drummer, a guitarist and a sound engineer. There is also a communications officer, and Bakai, the manager who takes care of all organisational matters ‘so that the musicians can concentrate fully on their art.’

‘Vtoroi Ka is a large team that takes music and image seriously,’ Bakai summarises. He believes that their growing success, manifested in tens or even hundreds of thousands of listeners in different corners of the world, is only ‘natural as they do everything honestly, deeply and to a high standard.’

During the tour, Bakai continues, he hopes for ‘full venues and real energy.’ In this respect, at least, some of the upcoming tour dates are looking promising: one of the two Berlin concerts and the Hamburg concert sold out weeks before the start of the tour. 

Click here for the list of Vtoroi Ka’s tour dates.

For more news and analysis from Central Asia, follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Telegram, Linkedin or Instagram.

Florian Coppenrath for Novastan

The post Welcome the Shitheads: Bishkek band Vtoroi Ka goes on a European tour appeared first on Novastan English.

Uzbekistan has a distinct form of gender-based violence: abuse of and control over daughters-in-law. This reflects cultural tradition where a bride – kelin – leaves her family home to move in with her husband and, often, his parents. Much of their young lives is dedicated to becoming a future kelin, a role in which they are treated as easily replaceable, although the patterns are slowly changing.

The Uzbek word ‘kelin’ originates from the Turkic verb ‘kel’, which means ‘to come’. Thus, ‘kelin’ literally translates to ‘the one who comes’ or ‘the one who is brought.’ Girls from an early age are treated as a guest and raised as a future kelin at their parental home, being taught how to do household chores and appease everyone. Most girls in Uzbekistan marry quite young, entering a traditional life filled with contempt and hardship. And in cases not too rare, the kelins pay with their lives.

Editor’s note: the following article contains mention of (extreme) violence and death that some readers may find distressing.

“She Served Us Well Only One Year”

Rasuljon Imamov, 64, opened the car door and pulled his daughter-in-law Gulmira’s head out as she was laying in the backseat unconscious, wheezing. He turned her face down, grabbed her by the hair, and drew the knife he carries in the car from the left side of her neck. “I cut her neck quickly because the knife was sharp and I separated the head from the body by breaking the bones,” he later recounted.

On that day – October 1, 2022, Rasuljon saw his kelin making dinner and asked to make it well. In response, Gulmira, a mother of two who already had been tired of her husband’s beatings and disagreements with her parents-in-law going on for years, simply said “I will try, but you will eat however it is done,” and shut the kitchen door so hard that its window cracked. Rasuljon had had enough of her. What kind of kelin would disrespect her in-laws? In his eyes, kelins were meant to be obedient, servile, and deferential at all times.

Uzbek traditions take pride in respecting elderly. Parents who raise children, particularly sons, are never left to live alone. Usually, the youngest son stays with parents, having his own family and later inheriting the house. His wife, now kelin, is expected to take care of in-laws’ needs, serving them well. Gulmira married the youngest son of the Imamovs family, Khusniddin, in 2011.

Clenching his fists, Rasuljon entered the kitchen and struck Gulmira in the throat with a single blow, causing her to collapse unconscious. Only her heavy breath filled the silence. Without hesitation, Rasuljon carried her to his car and drove to a nearby hillside, away from home. There, he decapitated her, discarding her headless body in a garbage ravine. Then he placed her severed head in a sack and placed it on juniper trees along the roadside.

“She served us well only one year,” he told the court later, recounting all the escalating conflicts between them. “From the second year she started changing.” Despite Gulmira’s father’s plea for the harshest possible punishment, Rasuljon received a sentence of just 13 years.

Violence Against Girls and Women: National Crisis

Official statistics on violence and harassment against women in Uzbekistan are limited, but the extent can be inferred from the number of issued protection orders. In 2019, Tashkent passed a law aimed at protecting women from violence and harassment, ensuring that those seeking help could receive protection orders, initially for one month. On average,  40,000 women apply for it each year, with 85 percent of cases involving close family members, highlighting domestic violence as the most prevalent form of abuse.

26% of women that participated in a recent research said they experience abuse or harassment from their husbands due to their perceived disrespect towards in-laws. Over 1.5 thousand kelins sought protection orders from their mothers-in-law in 2021 alone.

Apart from that, annually around 600 women commit suicide. During the covid-19 lockdown, as women were confined with their husbands and in-laws at home, this number surged to 900. The Ministry for Support of Mahalla and Family noted that women took their lives mostly due to conflicts with their husbands or other in-laws.

“If I die, take my body (for burial) from your grandmother’s house, not from here,” Zilola quietly told her 13-year-old son, Sardor, as she tucked him in for what she knew would be the last time. The home where she had spent the past 17 years now felt like a prison. Her in-laws wanted her gone, eager to replace her with a new, younger kelin.

She was content that in the days before, she had said her final goodbye to her daughter, Sabrina, passing down her gold jewelry as a keepsake. “Take care of your brother. I’ve never had a peaceful day here, but you live well,” she urged her 15-year-old daughter. “Don’t give your brother to your father. If something happens to me, your uncle will watch over you both,” she added, holding on to a faint glimmer of hope.

Zilola married Soyib Muftillayev, a shepherd, on a warm October day in 2006. From that point on, both Soyib and his older sister, Sabriya Muftillayeva, subjected her to ongoing verbal and physical abuse. The situation worsened when Soyib decided to marry another woman.

The Taboo of Divorce

For many women in Uzbekistan, divorce is not an option, however horrible married life is. Divorced women face significant shame and stigma, often limited to re-marrying either a divorcee or becoming a second wife. Former husbands often avoid child support and do not take part actively in children’s up-bringing.

From the point when Soyib made his mind about marrying another woman under the pretext of lack of intimacy, Zilola’s sister-in-law became even more cruel towards her. She would humiliate Zilola in front of others, beat her, and bad-mouth her to other relatives consistently. “I will marry my brother to another woman, you can’t look after him properly,” Sabriya would tell Zilola. “I will bring another woman and you will leave this house.”

Polygamy is illegal in Uzbekistan. However, hundreds of thousands keep second or even third wives without an official registration. Second wives are not protected by law, yet still, divorced women or girls who are ‘expired’ by societal standards, agree to become one.

Sabriya found a young woman for his brother and insisted Zilola leave the house at least for a few days so the new kelin could visit to see the household.

“Leave the house or not, we will bring the new kelin tomorrow,” said Soyib and his sister to Zilola humiliating and belittling her one last time in front of their relatives.

That night, after putting her son to sleep, Zilola placed a 5 kg propane gas cylinder inside the refrigerator and opened the valve, allowing gas to leak out. She couldn’t bear the thought of another woman living in her home—she’d rather destroy the house than leave it behind. As she hung herself with a wire cable, the gas leak triggered a powerful explosion, collapsing the room and burying her body in the wreckage.

Soyib and Sabriya were later found guilty of driving Zilola to suicide and were sentenced to three years in prison each.

A Life of Servitude and Control

At the core of domestic violence towards kelins lies physical labor. Kelins need to wake up early morning before everyone else and do all the chores around the house. They are only allowed to work or study if they manage everything on time and if husbands and in-laws give permission.

For that reason, many young women do not continue their studies after marriage. A recent study found that only 37.6 percent of young brides pursue further studies post-wedding. Nearly 40 percent reported that they were unable to continue their studies due to objections from their husbands (25.6 percent) or their in-laws (13.3 percent).

Read more on Novastan: Uzbekistan – when women demand to have a voice

The unemployment rate for women is double that of men, with 872,900 women unemployed compared to 459,800 men. Married women face a higher unemployment rate (56 percent) compared to their unmarried counterparts (36 percent). Another survey found that 43 percent of women do not seek employment due to household responsibilities, such as caring for children or elderly relatives, while only 7 percent of men gave the same reason. Additionally, women who are employed earn 39 percent less than men.

These factors contribute to young women’s dependence on their husbands and in-laws, often forcing them to endure abuse and harassment in silence. Even when husbands are in labor migration for months and sometimes years, women live with their in-laws, patiently serving them.

“Leave, or I’ll Kill You”

“Go back to your parents’ home, or I will kill you,” 63-year-old Gulimmet Djumanov threatened his kelin, Odila*, yet again on the morning of May 21, 2023. Odila’s husband, Anvar, was working in Russia as a labor migrant, leaving her and their two children to live with his parents. (Officially 1.8 million Uzbeks are currently working in Russia while the informal numbers could be much higher).

For years, the relationship between Odila and her in-laws had been fraught with tension. Suspecting her of infidelity, they divided the house, confining Odila and her children to one side and installing two cameras to monitor her every move.

That day, Gulimmet reportedly beat Odila again. Desperate, she called her family multiple times, pleading, “Take me from here, my mother-in-law is forcing me out.”

It was after consuming alcohol that Gulimmet reached for a white kitchen knife. His wife, Gavhar*, stood at Odila’s door, urging her to leave. Hiding the knife in his white sock, Gulimmet pushed his wife aside and entered Odila’s room. With his grandchildren, aged 9 and 11, watching in horror, he stabbed Odila in the thigh. In pain, she ran outside. Gulimmet caught her up when she collapsed in the house garden. He first stabbed her in the chest and then 6-7 more times in other parts of her body.

He threw the knife aside. Ignoring his neighbors who came out from the noise, Gulimmet headed towards his own brother’s house as he heard his wife scream “you killed (her)!”

“I only wanted to threaten her,” he pleaded in court, as he received a whopping 16 years of prison time.

Note: The names given in stories are real names provided in court documents. Names marked with an asterisk * denote those that have been made up as they are not available in the court documents.

Documents on homicide cases reviewed by local courts were collected through the research project Data4Women: Expanding the Existing Database to Tackle Femicides in Uzbekistan, supported by ECA UN Women, where the author is taking part. The author would like to extend her gratitude to the research team members Svetlana Dzardanova, Deniz Nazarova, and Gulnoza Akhmedova, as well as the team’s mentor, Savia Hasanova, for their valuable contributions. Special thanks are also due to ECA UN Women for organizing and funding the research.

This article is the author’s separate work and the findings and opinions do not necessarily reflect the official position or endorsement of ECA UN Women or other team members of the femicide project.

Written by Niginakhon Saida

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The post Bound by Tradition: Silent Suffering of Daughters-in-Law in Uzbekistan appeared first on Novastan English.

Bishkek musical duo Vtoroi Ka has recently dropped its third album: carnivalesque postpunk in a world where nothing is as serious as it seems. Novastan’s review.

“These post-Soviet cities have already seen quite some nonsense/ But after seeing our Kyrgyz squad up close/ the lockdown has been abruptly enacted for some reason“, says the chorus of the single “Vstrechyaite Govnyukov” (“Welcome the shitheads”), released in February 2023. The retro-aesthetic video shows an exuberant wedding party stirring up the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek. The audience has been warned: the “shitheads” are coming to cause a lot of trouble.

“Shitheads” – Govnyuki in Russian – is what Sultan and Ilya of the duo Vtoroi Ka, currently one of the most exciting music groups in Central Asia, call themselves. They adopted the term from a video blogger who mocked them with it and turned it into something positive. As Sultan says in a long interview with the online magazine SRSLY: “[We are] two shitheads. We’re explorers. The kind that aren’t afraid to try things and are constantly on an artistic quest.”

At the beginning of May, Vtoroi Ka released their third album, Svinaya Poputka, a mysterious title that could literally be translated as “piggy ride” – a not entirely inaccurate description of the listening experience. It opens with the inviting bass line of “Teni ot pal’m” (“Palm Shadow“): “Come take me quickly to where the palm shadows are…”

A cheerful Joy Division

The song, which was released in June 2022 together with a music video filmed in Bishkek and on Lake Issyk-Kul, is the duo’s most successful hit to date. A total of six of the eleven tracks on the album had previously been released as singles, all with funny and colourful videos. Die-hard fans of the group will therefore recognize some of the songs, but in any case Svinaya Poputka offers a musically delightful half hour.

Since their debut album “Den’ Zavisimosti” (“Dependence Day”, 2020), which was still clearly a rap album, Vtoroi Ka seem to be moving further and further back into the musical past. The second album, “Serial” (2022), features excursions into the alternative teen rock of the 2000s, and the most recent tracks are full of allusions to the post-punk of the 1970s and 1980s.

However, the characteristic sound of bass, drum computer and synthesiser, which according to one critic is sometimes even reminiscent of the late Soviet cult band Kino around Viktor Tsoi, does not underpin a dark soundscape as is so often the case. “Vtoroi Ka play post-punk, but their music doesn’t have the depressive vibe so typical for the genre,” emphasises hip-hop magazine The Flow. On the contrary: Svinaya Poputka is full of colourful irony – a kind of cheerful Joy Division, as those who grew up with English-language music might say (especially as Sultan’s bass voice is not so dissimilar to that of Ian Curtis).

Read also at Novastan: Inside Bishkek’s Metal Boom: Portrait of a Music Pioneer in Kyrgyzstan

Musical references and quotations can be found in abundance, whether in the lyrics themselves (“An old cassette, vernissage in the loudspeakers“) or in the musical elements. The reels that Sultan and Ilya use to promote their music on social media are like building instructions. For example, for Dura (dummy), their latest single: “Oh, try singing like Zhanna Aguzarova“, an eccentric Russian-speaking singer who was particularly successful in the late 80s.

Sex, drugs and gangster romance

While Svinaya Poputka takes listeners back to the 80s musically, its content primarily relates to the first decade of independence after the end of the Soviet Union. In the words of another reviewer: “The main characters in these songs are bandits and shitheads from the times of the wild 90s, such country road romantics”.

This is symbolised by the “Tonirovannyi Kaban” (“Tinted Boar”), which is enthroned on the album cover with Bishkek’s skyscrapers and a “Kosh Kelingizder” sign (Kyrg. for “Welcome”) in the background. On closer inspection, you can also recognise a “pig duck” on the sign, the signature of graffiti artist Cherv1, which adorns many a wall in Bishkek. Kaban – Russian for wild boar – is the popular name for the Mercedes W-140, a status symbol particularly popular among the nouveau riche and mafia of the post-Soviet 1990s. However, the bonnet is emblazoned with a pig’s snout instead of the usual star.

The single of the same name, in which Sultan and Ilya stage themselves as music dealers, is also dedicated to the “Tonirovannyi Kaban“: Bakai Kolchaev, director of the Bishkek music label Infinity Music, which also distributes the music of Vtoroi Ka, plays the role of a mob leader in the music video.

But unlike the Russian cult series Brigada, which definitively associated the “Kaban” with the criminal 90s, Svinaya Poputka is not so serious. “We don’t want to be taken seriously – like Skryptonite. We want to be simpler, with irony. Sometimes serious, but with a bit of fun,” says Ilya, summarizing the group’s approach.

Through music, colourful imagery and witty language the actually serious references turn into carnivalesque. A typical example for this is the music video “Dura” (“Dummy”), whose bizarre characters seem to come from Alice’s Wonderland. At the same time, the piece is peppered with allusions to the world of erotic webcams, an equally lucrative and dodgy business in Kyrgyzstan, and a recurring motiv in Vtoroi Ka’s work.

Dura‘s text speaks of “her” admirers (“Ukhazhory“), who “give her money wholeheartedly and so earnestly“, while she repeatedly goes “on air”. The same applies to the extremely danceable “Ona sovsem odna” (“She is all alone”): “Her body is a glossy comic for adults“, and further: “All admirers are wild, with brisk movements, unarmed/ In the chat, uncles over 40 are frolicking“.

The underworld of Vtoroi Ka with its very likeable characters, always on the lookout for the next “Dvizh”, the next adventure, is romantic. In “Boomerang”, a couple hides from unclear dangers in cosy togetherness in anticipation of the next Dvizh: “Here we are an easy target/ Let’s leave these rooftops“, whether meant metaphorically or literally. “We don’t have to die yet”, it says, as in “Teni ot Pal’m”, which tells of a girl who has become a “great shooter“, probably not without allusion to Luc Besson’s Leon – The Professional.

Obviously, if you die, you can’t have fun anymore. Intoxication and artificial paradises run through the album like another leitmotiv. The place of longing, where the palm trees stand, is one “where a kilo of junk for the nose costs a thousand“. Or “Pomyat“(“Crumpled”), a wild piece about the state “when there is nothing to recharge yourself with“. “Bong” stands out in particular with its rock’n’roll rhythm – and is, unsurprisingly, dedicated to the water pipe, which, according to the lyrics, should definitely feature in Vtoroi Ka’s Stage Riders (or that of their fictional characters?).

Flawless craftsmanship

Svinaya Poputka impresses no less with its detailed and flawless production, all handcrafted by Sultan and Ilya, who, by their own admission, like to control “everything from start to finish” when it comes to their songs. Without overloading their songs, they manage to surprise you – even on the hundredth listen – with a noise in the background, an imaginative rhyme or a particularly successful transition. The tracks are entertaining, all around two and a half minutes long, with snappy intros – and therefore fit perfectly into the streaming age. However, if you listen to the whole album in one go, you might get the feeling that you’ve had enough of the interplay between bass and drum machine.

But Vtoroi Ka, who must have felt the same way when they were working, have an answer to this: “We would like to say that we are concluding our post-punk story with this album. From now on, there will be other songs, other videos, maybe a different us.” We can therefore remain curious – and quickly browse through their video library – so that we can still claim to have discovered this gem before it became mainstream.

Svinaya Poputka can be heard on all streaming services.

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The post Sex, Drugs, and Postpunk – the new album of Bishkek’s Duo Vtoroi Ka appeared first on Novastan English.

Central Asia’s young filmmakers and their work are extremely diverse. The audience at the 24th goEast film festival in Wiesbaden was able to see this for themselves in various short film programmes. Novastan reviews.

The 24th goEast Festival of Central and Eastern European Film took place in Wiesbaden from 24 to 30 April. In addition to two films in the main competition, Central Asian cinema was mainly represented with short films, which were shown in four different programmes. Three of them competed in the Rheinmain Short Film Competition. In addition, goEast showed “New Voices from Central Asia” in cooperation with the ZDF/ARTE short film magazine, a programme dedicated solely to the region. We present our highlights.

Black Wagon

Mining is one of the most important economic sectors in Kyrgyzstan. However, Adilet Karzhoev’s documentary film “Black Wagon” impressively shows the catastrophic conditions under which coal and other raw materials are mined. He takes viewers inside a private mine in southwestern Kyrgyzstan and illustrates the cramped conditions underground.

Darkness and dust dominate the aesthetics, while the workers make their way through the labyrinth of corridors with their bare bodies glistening with sweat. Background noise is loud and threatening. Within this surreal setting, Karzhoev nevertheless manages to capture the normality of everyday life that the workers create for themselves 500 metres underground: The tea brought down the shaft in a coal lorry and fresh air in bags. During the breaks, the miners eat and laugh about the unsolvable conflicts surrounding the Kumtor mine, the largest gold mine in the country, and the never-ending border conflicts.

The group sits together around a smartphone and watches a video. But danger literally hovers over the everyday scene: collapses and accidents can happen here at any time, parts of the shafts are only supported by wooden beams instead of safer metal struts. When a wall partially shatteres, the cameraman has just enough time to get his equipment to safety. According to the end of the film, one to two workers a month lose their lives in one of more than 300 private mines around the town of Sülüktü in south-west Kyrgyzstan.

Only at the end of the film are the viewers led out of the shaft into the daylight together with the workers. The miners are paid in cash and sent away – until their next assignment. Many of the workers work in mines for years, sometimes their entire lives – including those who have their say in Karzhoev’s film. At the end, when the camera once again shows the vast mountain landscape around the mine, it becomes clear why: mining remains the great economic hope for the region. However, Karzhoev’s short film puts an important spotlight on the inhumane working conditions – and it is to be hoped that these will receive even more attention in the future.

The late wind

Saya is pregnant. But shortly after her boyfriend Kairat finds out, he disappears without a trace. The film accompanies Saya on her search, which is repeatedly interrupted by street protests. Is Kairat running from responsibility? Or is his disappearance linked to the protests?

Although the film gets by with little plot and a minimum of dialogue, director Shugyla Serzhan creates an atmospheric film that stands as a symbol for today’s Kazakhstan. This is thanks in part to lead actress Tolganay Talgat, whose sensitive performance allows us to share Saya’s innermost feelings and contributes greatly to the unsettling atmosphere that hovers over the entire film. While Saya constantly longs for warmth and security and paints childlike pictures of the sun on the steamed-up window, she is constantly denied this closure. Shooting in Almaty’s wintry, grimy weather creates an omnipresent grey that emphasises the film’s oppressive mood.

Even if the street protests seem rather pathetic in view of the low film budget, they inevitably bring back memories of the Qantar, one of the most traumatic events in Kazakhstan’s recent past. Saya’s search remains unsuccessful, her questions unanswered. Together with her, the whole country looks into an unclear, but definitely unsettling future.

Old Things

Three men bathe in a canal, a girl talks lovingly to stuffed animals at a flea market, a worker proudly shows off his library card. “Old things” by Roman Zakharov is a portrait of the Uzbek capital of Tashkent that shows the contradictions of the post-Soviet city without falling into bold depictions.

Instead, Zakharov explores the multi-layered spectrum that the city offers, and in particular the people who live and work in it. There is a bread seller selling his wares by the roadside, a dog owner complaining about all the trash in the city, a passer-by talking about the political changes in the country. Zakharov subtly juxtaposes different realities: new buildings and parks, dirt on the roadside and neatly polished memorials, critical voices and oversized national flags. Different linguistic worlds also come together: sometimes Russian is spoken, sometimes Uzbek, and sometimes even the director, who comes from Kazakhstan, reaches the limits of his language skills in the conversations.

Read more on Novastan: “Alaqan”: Aida Adilbek’s decolonial documentary cinema

Zakharov’s short film seems to loosely follow the course of a day: from sunrise and a bazaar that seems to be just waking up, to the blazing midday sun on Tashkent’s Independence Square, to the Independence Monument in “Yangi O’zbekiston” Park in the form of a giant Huma bird glowing in bright colours in the evening. The juxtaposition creates the impression of a rounded portrait that impressively expresses the polyphony of the Central Asian metropolis and allows nuances to emerge that are otherwise often sought in vain in depictions of the Uzbek capital, and which allow for breaks with the usual national narratives.

Ask

Kyrgyz director Naizabek Sydykov’s dystopia takes us to a ruined city ruled by a bizarre dictatorship. According to the “great leader”, a “city of the future” is to be built here, but first the inhabitants are forced to demolish all the remaining houses. The compulsion to uniformity (“Be like the others”) and the surveillance are reminiscent of George Orwell’s works.

Read more on Novastan: “Ayban Ferma”: translatin George Orwell into Kyrgyz

Teenager Umut is one of the few who questions the circumstances. By chance, he discovers a capsule containing old plans of the city that is being destroyed. Umut realises: “There will be no city of the future, because we have already destroyed it.” When he dares to confront the “great leader” with questions at the next meeting, he is declared ill by his own parents, who fear that he will become a pariah, excluded from the glorious future. Umut also has to apologise publicly. Only his girlfriend (whose name is unknown), whom he has let in on his discovery, stands by him. Starting with her, more and more people begin to question the system.

Even if the actual reasons are probably to be found in the budget, Sydykov creates an incredibly cheap aesthetic in “Ask”, which seems to have been specially designed for the dictatorship portrayed and perfectly emphasises its absurdity. And although the film’s political message seems rather simple, “Ask” is a successful parable of contemporary regimes such as those in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan or even in Kyrgyzstan under Sadyr Japarov, in which the political leadership always promises fundamental renewal without actually delivering it. It is time to question things.

Mirtemir is alright

Karakalpakstan in the summer of 2022: in the autonomous republic protests break out and are violently suppressed by the Uzbek government. The filmmakers Sasha Kulak and Mikhail Borodin travel to Nukus in the midst of this situation to get a first-hand impression. They meet Mirtemir at a mobile karaoke station on the city’s main square.

Mirtemir, who appears “like a teenager from Kreuzberg or Williamsburg” (goEast programme booklet), captivates the two filmmakers and the result is a wonderful portrait of a Karakalpak teenager who radiates incredible optimism. His life is not easy: he cares for his blind grandmother, with whom he lives, as his mother has gone abroad to work (a plan that Mirtemir also harbours himself). During the day he works in a fast food restaurant and at night at the karaoke station. But despite all his hardships, Mirtemir has a lightness of touch that comes from deep within.

With “Mirtemir is alright”, Kulak and Borodin provide an insight into a region that, apart from the Aral Sea and the Savitsky Museum, hardly receives any attention in the West. Through their camera work, which is sometimes frontal and usually very close to the protagonist, they create a film that – despite being a documentary – becomes almost fictional at times. And Mirtemir’s boundless confidence also raises the question of whether this light-heartedness is not an act in view of the camera. A film too good to be true?

No. Because the film does not turn a blind eye to the problems, but contrasts them with Mirtemir’s optimism with a laugh. The narrative has a serious background: Mirtemir shares the fate of many other children left behind by migrant workers from Central Asia, although viewers only learn this in the fade-out. But despite all this, Mirtemir’s positivity is infectious and, together with him, we can look forward to a bright future.

For more news and analysis from Central Asia, follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Telegram, Linkedin or Instagram.

The post New voices: Central Asian short films at the GoEast Festival 2024 appeared first on Novastan English.

Everyone in Kyrgyzstan is looking forward to a warm and sunny spring after a long and cold winter. Nooruz marks the astronomical start of the spring, or spring equinox, when day and night even up and daylight time starts to grow. March 21st is full of different events, performances, and delicious food. Novastan interviewed Kyrgyz people to find out how Kyrgyzstan celebrates Nooruz.

On the 21st of March, Kyrgyz citizens are having a Nooruz (“noo” – new and “ruz” – day) celebration. Nooruz is an ancient national celebration of the spring equinox when the day and the night become equal. It is celebrated on the 21st of March and marks the beginning of the New Year and the renewal of nature in many cultures. 

Bazarkan

Neighbors usually organize events within their village. Bazarkan is a Kyrgyz teacher from a small village called “Jangarach”.

“Nowruz was a highly awaited holiday … My mother would sew new dresses and tebeteis (Kyrgyz national hats worn by girls) for me and my sister. Everyone would clean their houses and yards for the guests and cook a lot of delicious food to share with family and friends,” says Bazarkan.

Unlike the popular belief that Nooruz is about the awakening of nature and the coming of the New Year, Bazarkan grew up with a different opinion on the meaning of the holiday.

Read more on Novastan: Beyond fun and games – the politics of Nowruz

“Nooruz is all about friendship and community,” she says. The whole day is supposed to be spent having a good time by playing traditional Kyrgyz games, eating traditional food, singing, dancing, and chatting with the neighbors to establish a stronger bond with them. 

Nowadays her village does not celebrate this holiday as it used to. “It is becoming less popular to celebrate Nooruz,” says Bazarkan sadly. Today the elders of the village still try to organize some games and celebrations but fewer and fewer people are participating. “I think this is happening due to changes in people’s beliefs and religions,” she adds. 

Ruslan

Ruslan is a youth activist who involves foreigners and tourists in cultural games such as Kok-Boru. 

“I always follow the elders. To be honest, I don’t even know when Nooruz will be this year” says Ruslan. Growing up, he celebrated Nooruz in Ekaterinburg, Russia. Now that Ruslan moved back to Kyrgyzstan, he still celebrates it with his family. Unlike before, his whole family and relatives gather together to celebrate and eat traditional food – in Russia it used to be just him and his immediate family. 

When asked about the meaning of the holiday, Ruslan uncertainly says, “The beginning, right?” 

Sezim 

“We usually celebrate Nooruz at home, however not as large as the New Year. Although, Nooruz is our New Year” says Sezim. She shares that her family usually celebrates by cooking boorsoks (traditional Kyrgyz pastry), plov, and inviting their closest relatives. When Sezim used to be younger, she used to live in the Issyk-Kul region where every Nooruz would be celebrated by having a big fair, and she would even perform there sometimes as she used to attend musical school. 

Sezim sees Nooruz as a family holiday. Her favorite parts of the Holiday are the colorful traditional Kyrgyz clothing and rituals such as the burning of juniper which is supposed to clean the house and get rid of bad spirits. 

Kubanych

For local designers, Nooruz is more than just a national holiday. It is a chance to share their art with people.

The coming of spring is celebrated yearly in the Supara Ethno-complex with a lot of laughter and fun. Every Nooruz ethno-complex comes up with different programs. Guests can take part in traditional Kyrgyz games, learn how to work with clay, take a stroll around the museum that is located on the territory of the complex, and take a look at traditional Kyrgyz clothing. 

A couple of days before the big celebration, the staff prepares sumolok (a traditional dish prepared specifically for Nooruz), which all of the guests love. 

“This event is mainly organized to teach the young generation about Kyrgyz values and traditions,” says Kubanych, the organizer of the event. Kubanych also shares that throughout the years they have witnessed more young people attending the event dressed in traditional clothing.

Background

Kyrgyzstan has been an independent country for 31 years. However, Nooruz was celebrated in this region long before. Nooruz is considered a holiday with origins in Zoroastrianism and its roots go back to ancient times before the arrival of Islam to Kyrgyzstan.

Today this holiday is celebrated in large parts of the South Caucasus, Western Asia, and Southern and Central Asia, in countries such as Afghanistan, Albania, Azerbaijan, Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, and some parts of Russia (Bashkortostan, Dagestan, Tatarstan).

All photos by Tasnim Azimova, unless indicated otherwise

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The post How is Kyrgyzstan celebrating Nooruz in 2024? appeared first on Novastan English.

Kyrgyzstan’s capital Bishkek is home to a small but vibrant metal scene. In the still largely traditional Kyrgyz society, local metal artists often struggle to find an audience, produce their music and get media attention. However, some leading figures in Bishkek’s metal scene are actively trying to promote the genre, both at home and abroad. One of these people is Alexander Degtyariov (32). He has been active in a large number of projects, produced a several albums with different bands and performs regularly in Bishkek and other places in Central Asia. His birthday festival in November 2023 attracted a large crowd of over 100 people who gathered at Bishkek’s favourite hangout place for metalheads: Bar56. Novastan spoke to metal pioneer Alexander about his life and career and the role of metal music in Kyrgyz and Central Asian societies.

“I first got into music when I was 14. I grew up in Tokmok, and back in the day that was a tough place. There were a lot of social issues, often connected to drugs. When I was in school, I started playing in a punk band. Later, a friend introduced me to a song from ‘Blur’. This resonated with me. I went online on a Kyrgyz forum to explore more music and found out that a lot of people were into one or the other of some mainstream bands, such as Metallica, ACDC, Black Sabbath and Slayer. I really liked those bands as well, but still felt like there was something missing, so I explored further.

Slowly I discovered other types of music, such as metalcore, grindcore, hardcore and melodic death metal. When I played this music for my friends, they would often shy away and say that it was too much for them. But I loved it. The louder it was and the more it provoked people, the more I liked it. I liked the anger.

When I was 16, a friend asked me to play in another band, but I found myself too old for this, as I thought that making music was something only the younger kids did. In the end he persuaded me to play after school for once. After this I kept coming back and started performing regularly.

From one band to another

In the past, there were very few metal bands in Kyrgyzstan. And those that performed only played covers. Soon after my first gigs, I started a band called Almagest. With Almagest I got to do my first big concert. It was an open-air concert for some 500 people. I loved the emotions and the energy of the crowd, how the crowd would turn into a single organism during the concert. With Almagest we also played in some local rock bars. Sadly we didn’t produce more than one single before the band split up.

Read more on Novastan: Darkestrah, a Black Metal Band from Kyrgyzstan

Around 2014, I really got into New York hardcore, but there was no-one who was playing it. I found out that supply creates demand: if you start playing something, people will come and listen to it. Some will not like it, but others will and they stick with you. That’s why I started playing more of the genre myself and founded a second band: Art of Gore. With Art of Gore we did a tour in Kazakhstan, but unfortunately our drummer got into some legal problems and we had to stop the project.

In 2016 I started yet another new project, Shahid, and another band called Devouring Genocide followed soon after. In-between I had a lot of other bands. I played every day. There is even a meme that has been going around about me starting new bands all the time.

Clash of cultures

In general it has been tough making metal music in Kyrgyzstan. Often they think you’re a Satanist. There are two ways to be into metal in Kyrgyzstan: you have to be strong or you have to hide. It is a traditional country and sometimes people react badly. Also economically, it has been tough. Back in the days we didn’t have money for equipment. When I got my first guitar, I ate noodles for half a year to pay for it. We got our drums from the old Dom Kultura, the Soviet-era hangout place for the youth. A friend of mine managed to get his hands on a studio monitor, and then we started recording. We never had a proper studio and I think there still are no professional metal studios in Kyrgyzstan.

We play in our garages, basements or wherever we can. If you have a socket, some lamps, walls and a roof, you can play. Still, the economy keeps us small. When people have little money to spend, going to concerts is not their priority. Luckily there are several good venues where underground metal bands rehearse, and there have always been people who tried to make studios, clubs and concerts for the underground. We rely on these fanatics who support the local scene.

The way is up

Nowadays the situation is slowly improving. People are starting to get more money. Before we only had old Soviet and cheap Chinese instruments, but now we’re getting our hands on better stuff. The interest among the public is also growing. Metal is spreading because of the internet. The music doesn’t depend on nationality anymore, but it has become globalised. Kids just find out through TikTok. There is a new generation of musicians coming up, now that the guys who were listening to us as teenagers have started to understand the music and interpret it in their own ways. Technology also has made it cheaper for us to make music, as some of the production has become digital.

In Kyrgyzstan the scene is less noticeable than in Kazakhstan, especially Almaty. We often play there. The population is larger and the economy is more developed as well. When we struggled to find money to buy our equipment, the guys in Kazakhstan usually managed to get something better. The scene in Uzbekistan is also growing, since the country has been opening up under the current president. Previously everything there was underground, but soon they’ll be having their first big concert by a band from outside the region, The 69 Eyes from Finland.

Read more on Novastan: Kuturgan Fest – How Bishkek Becomes the Metal Capital of Central Asia

In our small scene, everyone knows each other and tries to help each other. Back when we started we had no-one to help us. Right now there are three of us who are more or less running the metal scene in Bishkek. Arseny Zherdev plays in KASHGAR, an ethnic black metal band. He does the large concerts and manages to get big bands from outside the region. A very important moment for everyone was when Sepultura, a Brazilian heavy metal band, came to Bishkek. We couldn’t believe that happened. Mikhail Efimenko focuses on the local established bands from Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. He plays in MY OWN SHIVA, a metalcore band.

I only work with the underground people. For me it’s the emotion that matters.  If a shaman starts banging a drum and wants to make metal, I will help him. My life philosophy is around supporting creativity. Whether you play a temir komuz, grindcore, punk, death metal or whatever – that’s all great by me. Just play. If I have the possibility to help, I will help.

Music connecting the world

Through my music I connect with people from outside the country, from all over the world. The first album of my band Shahid, Откровение (Revelations), was about social problems in Kyrgyzstan: crime, revolutions, street violence, hatred, family issues, poverty, drugs, and mental health problems. It was post-Soviet melancholy, post-Union noir. It was about doom. We don’t have a lot of opportunities in Kyrgyzstan. There has been a lot of instability.

In the album I needed to speak out. I didn’t expect anyone to understand this, but it turned out that people in the entire post-Soviet region think and feel the same way. People wrote me from Ukraine, from Belarus, from Kazakhstan, Russia and Poland. I even got a message from two guys from Canada. Even though my lyrics are only in Russian, they told me that they knew what I meant and how I felt. Then I understood that with globalisation, problems are the same all over the world. And when you sing about it, people everywhere will understand you.

For us, music is more than just a hobby. It is a way of life. We’re all getting a bit older now and we have work problems, family problems, social problems and other problems. We don’t make money when we play. On the contrary: we often pay to travel and perform. But this doesn’t matter to us. We’ll keep trying to help the locals who want to play, lend them guitars, drums, microphones – anything they need. We have no material interest in this, we’re just doing this out of our passion and ideals. And I keep performing as well. Soon, I will even play with Death before Dishonour (a hardcore band from Boston, USA) in Almaty. If you would have told me this five years ago, I would not have believed you.”

Photos are courtesy of the ROCK DA BONE festival in Bishkek

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The post Inside Bishkek’s Metal Boom: Portrait of a Music Pioneer in Kyrgyzstan appeared first on Novastan English.

We are continuing our series of articles on Kazakhstani documentaries revolutionizing everyday life. Documentary film directors and producers Kristina Mikhailova, Dana Sabitova and Almira Ismailova analyze Kazakhstani documentaries in cultural, social and industrial contexts. This time we will focus on the short film “Alaqan” directed by Aida Adilbek, looking at its relationship with decoloniality and genre transgression, and talk to Aida herself about the family documentary.

Kristina Mikhailova: Aida Adilbek represented Kazakhstan this year at the goEast Film Festival, which for 20 years has been one of the most important platforms for films from Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Aida curated a program of short films by DAVRA, a collective of Central Asian female cultural activists. This year the film festival also held a symposium on the decolonization of the (post)soviet screen, where Aida was a speaker on the panel “Post-, Neo-, and De-colonial Central Asia“. This is where we should start discussing the film “Alaqan,” as it was Aida Adilbek who represented Kazakhstan in the context of decolonial optics, which is important for Central Asia in the current political climate.

Whereas for many years in a row, film festivals have turned directly to national film studios in search of  Central Asian films – Kazakhfilm, Uzbekfilm, Tajikfilm, Turkmenfilm, and Kyrgyzfilm, this year we can finally say that the Central Asian countries were represented by independent filmmakers. For Kazakhstan, this is a turning point in the perception of an unwieldy national film studio, which has long failed to reflect the state of Kazakhstani society on the screen.

Dana Sabitovia: “Kazakhfilm” remains a major player in the distribution of state funding. For example, in 2022, of the projects financed by the State Center for Support of National Cinema (SCSNC), only about 20% of the projects belonged to Kazakhfilm. After amendments to the Law on Cinematography were introduced at the end of 2022, only then would “Kazakhfilm” receive at least 35% of the total amount of funds that the state spends annually to support the production of national cinema.

In 2019, according to the audited reports of the SCSNC, the amount of state support for films amounted to 1.8 billion tenge, in 2020 – 3.76 billion tenge, in 2021 – 5.93 billion tenge. In 2021, 8.37 billion tenge was allocated, of which 3.8 billion was not utilized, which affected the reduction of the amount in 2023. In 2023, 6.02 billion tenge was allocated for state financing of cinema.

With scandals in the film industry starting in May, unscheduled inspections of the activities of the SCSNC, and, for the most part, the typical non-compliance with deadlines, it remains highly questionable whether in 2023 this support will be utilized and whether films will be made. Will these films, directors and producers represent Kazakhstan at major international film festivals with a decolonial lens, as in the case of Aida Adilbek?

The budget for the independent film “Alaqan” included only the camera rental and the purchase of three litres of milk. As a matter of principle, I would like to keep the production costs in litres, without converting it to tenge. Aida did everything herself: from the camera and sound recording to directing and editing. The fact that Aida is the nucleus of her own film, not allowing the crew into the space, creates an intimate atmosphere that is characteristic of the author’s documentary cinema and invites the audience to participate in the events taking place. Moreover, the filmmaker goes beyond the boundaries of auteur documentary cinema, experimenting with borderline states of form, closely observing her grandmother’s daily practices, sacralising them and perceiving them as ritual. This is an experimental docu-art.

Aida is a multidisciplinary artist and curator. Her artistic practice evolves around the ideas of femininity explored through cultural codes and the unfathomable simplicity of domestic life. She works in performance, video art and the documentation of reality. 

Almira Ismailova: If one could touch the forehead of the four films we studied, “Alaqan” would be the hottest. Aida’s grandmother, like a great foremother, rubs the malleable qurt in her hands, on which the entire life of her family is written. This action is akin to an ancient sacrament. The oldest woman of the family shows her granddaughter the process of preparing the qurt, from boiling the milk to shaping the oblong, brackish qurt. Aida familiarizes the viewer with this practice, watching only the hands of her grandmother and the other women of her family: Aida’s slender fingers rinse the kese (teacup) with water, and we see Aida’s mother’s hands watering the garden.

Applying Carl Jung’s theory of archetypes, developed by Jung as part of his study of the collective unconscious, to “Alaqan,” we see how the central image of Apa combines several archetypes. When the grandmother prepares the qurt, she realizes the archetype of the Creator. She worries for her relatives, realizing the archetype of Caring. When she reads a book, she realizes the archetype of the Child, marvelling at everything. We observe such a three-dimensional, even multidimensional character development in a short film, which is not always possible even in a full-length movie. Aida manages to do this solely through a sophisticated, unconventional form. In addition to intra-image dramaturgy, the author builds dramaturgical structure through locations. The heroines exist on three levels of existence: the grandmother lives in heaven, where she makes a white qurt; mother, as a tamer of black hose snakes, dwells in a dark dungeon; the two women meet on earth for tea with lepyoshka.

Aida Adilbek: Until I started editing the movie, I didn’t even know it would be a documentary. I had envisioned an experimental video, something static, like a video of making qurt. But when I watched all the footage, I suddenly realized that I wanted to leave all the roughness of the footage and the feeling of my observation. I liked the non-static footage better, which is a little wobbly. I’ve been told by a few movie friends that it’s a bit “off”. I, on the other hand, liked these scenes much better because they are lively, as is the whole voice cast, and the sounds that happen in the background. They were really stirring me up too, and I thought I wanted to leave it as it was.

In 2019 I started my master’s in London at Goldsmiths. I went to Almaty on my vacation. I think it happens so often that when you go away from somewhere for a long time (I was away for a year) and then come back, you see reality differently. I suddenly realized that my parents had aged. Then my grandmother came, and I realized that she had aged too. When I saw them all the time, I didn’t notice. And here, when a little time had passed for me away from them, I suddenly saw that they were ageing. They don’t last forever. And I started to have existential questions. And with the qurt, too, because my grandmother always brings me qurt. There are very few people in our family who like qurt as much as I do, so my grandmother purposely brings it to me.

I thought then that if my grandmother passed away, there would be no one else to make qurt. Not me, not my mom, not my sisters, no one. So I started recording my grandmother, following her around the house and filming her making qurt on my iPhone. None of that worked. I had a bit of a breakdown – I deleted all the files, I didn’t like them. But there was one freeze frame that I liked. It was a dark background with a very contrasting hand and a white qurt. That shot stayed in my head for a long time.

I came back to it while preparing an exhibition for Documenta with the DAVRA team. We talked to Saodat Ismailova, the creator of DAVRA, about the plans. I came back to the subject and said that I wanted to film my grandmother making qurt. She said: “Go ahead.” I borrowed a friend’s camera, told my grandmother, “When you get here, let’s make some.” She told me to buy three litres of fresh, steamed milk and prepare it so that it starts to sour. We bought it, started filming, and during the shooting I realized that this was a film about three generations of women in my family.

Kristina Mikhailova: It is absolutely impossible to imagine Aida with her warm project within the walls of “Kazakhfilm,” because the huge film studio can hardly accommodate Aida as an artist. It is also practically impossible to present Aida’s project as pitch to apply for state funding. Obviously, this situation needs to change, Aida documents our everyday life with stunning accuracy, constructing actual narratives about Kazakhstani society. But no one will allow directors and producers to spend public money on a personal movie about a grandmother. When you study documentary filmmaking, this is the first stereotype that Kazakhstani teachers will greet you with: “Make a movie about what you know! Make one about your grandmother.” In a way, this devalues any movie about a grandmother, about all the grandmothers of Kazakhstan, postulating it as something not serious, academic, amateur, and unimportant. But if every other viewer cried during screenings of “Alaqan,” why can’t we recognize that the personal and the family are the most important aspects through which we, as a society, form our subjectivity?

Read more on Novastan: Sweet Milky Corn:  the film, in which everyone recognizes themselves

I work as a documentary film director and producer. They are two positions that sometimes contrast each other. For me, as an artist, it is very important that these contrasting dialogues are within myself. The next commentary I say only as a producer who thinks about the developing horizons of documentary film including market horizons. Producers and decision-makers of documentary films in Kazakhstan focus on long outdated thematic constructs. SCSNC and the Ministry of Culture and Sport of Kazakhstan announced exclusively themed open calls. These slots are a monstrous legacy. Every documentary filmmaker is obliged to fit their feelings, vague premonitions and reflections of several years of his life into these slots. This is why I sharply contrast the notion of “documentary filmmaker” and “documentary artist”. “Documentary filmmaker” fulfils one’s expectations and fits into the shoebox of meanings prepared for him. The “documentary artist” independently initiates a topic that is interesting and feasible for them in the context of producing knowledge about Kazakhstani society.

Overcoming industry constraints is not the job of the documentary artist; it is the job of the producer. The producer secures financial opportunities, incorporates the artist’s unique vision into existing structures with their limitations, and advocates for the needs of the project throughout the production and distribution stages. We refer to the production of documentary filmmakers working with decolonial narratives as decolonial production.

But decolonial production in Kazakhstan currently doesn’t exist. Kazakhstani documentary film producers either work at “Kazakhfilm” or own private studios and ateliers producing commercial content. In the airless space of open talks, my colleagues engage in deep discussions about the creative industry, sharing naively optimistic hopes. It is easy to find many master classes by Kazakhstani documentary filmmakers on how to make real documentary films. But in practice, statistically assessing the industry, we see funding opportunities only for commercial orders and for films based on a thematic plan that has been handed down from above.

It is worth taking a complete look at the reasons for this. Current film professionals for the most part have direct or indirect backgrounds only in the Russian/Soviet education system. Interaction with the international film industry/education system is only available to a limited number of people. By the term “international industry” we do not mean the “Western” industry in its negative connotation, but the Asian, American and European markets together. Institutionally, such interaction is not supported in any way by the state or private foundations.

The knowledge obtained fragmentarily is introduced into the local industry and soon dies out as alien elements.

Elementary co-production in cinema with many countries is closed for Kazakhstan because we have not signed key conventions or memorandums. Lack of education and limited alternative financing options lead to the fact that there is no producer for Aida Adilbek’s next film. In the current outlook, her cinema will either exist marginalized for a narrow audience or will eventually transform into something conformist.

As a filmmaker and artist, I take a more gentle view of this painful question. My oppressed colleagues, professionally nurtured by the shock therapy of the 1990s, the financial pre-crisis debauchery of the 2000s, and the almost criminal laws of the local film industry of today, have no time, energy, or desire for reflection and solidarization. Especially if each of us personally is in total dependence on project financing. If there is a project, there is a budget, there are salaries, there are temporary minimum social guarantees. If there is no project, the whole scheme collapses for the 30-50 people involved in making the movie.

We at “Women make docs” organize online sessions for Central Asian documentary filmmakers and producers, where we introduce representatives of major international institutions and foundations to projects from the region in order to increase funding opportunities. Filmmakers from Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan ask the following questions: “Is there censorship in international foundations?”, “What genres do international foundations support?”, “What topics are of interest to international foundations?”.

Such questions suggest that documentary filmmakers in Central Asia think of themselves as craftsmen, fulfilling thematic and genre orders, which are censored at all stages of filmmaking, from idea to final cut.

Aida Adilbek was a participant in one of the sessions, where she asked whether international funds accept applications for hybrid films that combine several genres. The answer was positive, with the clarification that the average budget for such a film is 200-300 million tenge, while the Kazakhstani budget for documentaries is fixed between 25 and 50 million tenge.

The regional conference “Decolonization of Central Asia: Changing Narratives” organized by the Institute for War & Peace Reporting in Almaty on 15-17 March 2023 resulted in recommendation notes for civil society, governments, media and international organizations. In terms of documentary filmmaking and decolonial production, I think it is necessary to prioritize governmental-level financial support for documentary projects working in all forms and genres with the concept of Kazakhstani identity. Very personal, almost intimate documentary stories, family documentaries, archival documentaries – this is what will help ethically introduce the decolonial discourse into a broad public discussion without creating new collective trauma. Aida said in an interview about her first solo exhibition that for her, the process of decolonization is about putting ourselves at the center, producing knowledge about ourselves, taking close-up shots of ourselves. In this regard, it is noteworthy that “Alaqan” consists almost entirely of close-ups.

Aida Adilbek: For me, the close-up is, first of all, cozy. It’s a bit claustrophobic. It’s very strange. It’s a bit complicated because it doesn’t always fit everything. It’s incomprehensible, but at the same time it’s very clear to me. I think the close-ups are very sincere in the way everything works. The movie for me started with a contrasting close-up of my grandmother’s hands. And I called the movie “Alaqan” (kaz. for “palm” – editor’s note).

There are several meanings in the film title. Hands play a major role in the movie. They produce something or teach other hands to do something. I have a lot of videos on my phone of people doing something with their hands. It’s one of the most beautiful moments and the most sincere, when people are not concerned with how they look, who they are, what they are. They are completely in the process, including my mother and grandmother, who taught me different things in the movie.

Alaqan is also a two- to three-color pattern that looks like a snake. My interpretation is that this pattern is similar to the veins and arteries that are in our palms. They are yellow, green or blue, pink. During the DAVRA practices we were looking at what Ilon pari is. It is the spirit of the snake. When the snake peels off its skin, it is like a woman giving life to her daughter and passing on her most important qualities to her daughter. We are passing something very important from one woman to another from generation to generation. In fact, it’s like one woman living in different bodies for thousands of years. That was very important to me in the movie. That’s why the title somehow came together right away. “Alaqan” – these hands, this pattern that has the meaning of blood, and continuation, and palm, and everything.

My film during Documenta was a part of the project “Chilltan suv” (Uzbek. for “water of the Chiltans”) related to water. Chiltans are helper spirits that have different forms and manifestations. I wanted to think about how a woman heals the space, the people around her, the house and everything she touches through water, through milk. This is also why I included my mother’s gardening in the movie. I myself mostly have some still small domestic role, also related to water. I wash dishes.

Someone told me that the rain scene in the movie was unnecessary. Of course, I don’t tell everyone the concept of the connection with water, people don’t need to know. It’s only important for me to know. I always want to leave the rain in the final cut because it doesn’t have any intellectual context.

Almira Ismailova: I think the main theme that Aida reveals to the general audience in her movie is the fear of death. She tries to adopt her grandmother’s recipe for making qurt as soon as possible, and the camerawork and the choice of angles epitomize her desire. The grandmother’s regal calmness in the face of the inexorable end is palpable. Aida’s fear is not constraining. She even seems to resign herself to it. It is a constructive fear that shortens the distance between Aida and her grandmother. It made me wonder how this came to be. The dramaturgy of the movie does not obey the precepts of American textbooks about the three-act structure, and it is difficult to pinpoint exactly who the antagonist and protagonist are, yet Aida and the grandmother seem to oppose each other. When the protagonist realizes their similarities to the one they are opposed to, the story has a new dimension. Within the universe of the movie “Alaqan,” Aida and the grandmother together stop being afraid of dying. And this therapeutic effect gives Aida the opportunity to experience the loss of a loved one in real life.

The director skillfully works with subtext, revealing the image of the grandmother through action. As the qurt is being prepared, we hear from the grandmother: “Ädemileyin degen son, söytip shigadi goy – teris qaray” (“When you want to make it more beautiful, it turns out wrong”). She is touchingly worried that it is during the filming that the qurt will not turn out right. Aida’s grandmother carefully collects the mass from her hands, which is used to make the qurt, down to the last grain. She, as a person of the generation who has had many challenges, has a very reverent attitude to food. Milk was valued by Kazakhs as something sacred: it must not be spilled on the ground or desecrated. Probably, that is why white colour symbolizes something good and pure. If they wanted to praise a person in any way, they always added the word aq (Kaz. for “white”) – aq jarqin (Kaz. for “cheerful”), aq könil (Kaz. for “good-natured”). Through the episode with the joint reading of the story about Jirenshe and the clever girl, we understand what human qualities the grandmother admires. This way of telling about the hero allows the viewer to come to conclusions and makes the relationship between the author and the viewer comfortable, not abusive.

Aida Adilbek: The most important motto of my work – not only artistic, but also curatorial – is that I do it for myself. But it is important to make exhibitions for people, so I want to make them as comfortable as possible. The hall where I showed “Alaqan” during my solo exhibition was very cozy, comfortable, with carpeting and pillows. And during Documenta, the day of my solo exhibition, I had to put on a performance. The concept consisted of three parts: a sound installation, the movie “Alaqan” and a performance. All in different halls. Visitors walk through all three halls. The three works had to be connected several times a day. The movie was played cyclically in the hall and the audio installation was turned on three times a day. The performance was called “Chilltan suv.” Chilltan figures – conventionally creatures generated by water – appeared in the hall. During that performance, I suddenly realized that these creatures were milky, like qurt. Probably, when all rivers and waters originated from Umai, they were filled with the milk of her breasts.

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This article was first published by Vlast.kz

Visual materials are provided by the “Women make docs” collective

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